It Can't Happen Here

This chapter follows Windrip on the campaign trail as Jessup struggles to understand Windrip’s support. Windrip is vulgar, borderline illiterate, tells easily disprovable lies, fakes his piety, and his celebrated sense of humor is a cynical means to an end. It is rumored that Windrip spent time as a travelling snake-oil salesman, and that his supposed cures killed people. Jessup describes him as now selling bogus economics instead.

As a senator, Windrip’s platform consisted of “better beef stew in the county poor-farms, and plenty of graft for loyal machine politicians” (72). Seven years prior to Windrip’s presidential nomination, Windrip met Lee Sarason, who has been grooming him for power ever since. Now, Windrip is described by Jessup as a professional Common Man:

twenty-times-magnified by his oratory, so that while the other Commoners could understand his every purpose, which was exactly the same as their own, they saw him towering among them, and they raised hands to him in worship (73).

Windrip also manages to make almost everyone like him, except for newspaper writers, whom are the only people to like him less after meeting him, though their frequent attacks keep his name in the papers.

Sarason attempts to get Windrip to understand the basics of international diplomacy, but Windrip is unable to comprehend them and leaves the details to Sarason. Instead, Windrip’s folksy humor, anti-elitism, and boorishness endear him to the common people. Sarason also convinces Windrip to select Perly Beecroft–a southern tobacco-planter and ex-governor–as his running mate. Beecroft’s presence convinces wealthy financiers to trust Windrip, even as he denounces these financiers in his speeches.

Finally, despite passing off many ideas from European Fascism as his own, Windrip successfully portrays himself as a classic Democrat opposed to both left and right extremism, such that “most of the Republicans who were afraid of Democratic Fascism, and all the Democrats who were afraid of Republican Fascism, were ready to vote for him” (78).

Windrip’s success on the campaign trail continues. Lewis describes the various groups that support him: mortgaged farmers; unemployed white-collar workers; people on unemployment who want more; suburbanites who can’t afford installment payments on appliances; veterans looking for an increase to their bonuses; preachers who think they can get useful publicity by supporting him; the KKK; labor leaders who feel slighted by other politicians; non-unionized workers who feel slighted by labor leaders; the Anti-Saloon League (Windrip drinks a lot, but praises teetotalism; Trowbridge doesn’t drink but doesn’t support prohibition either); and millionaires who feel that their prosperity is limited only by fiendish bankers limiting their credit. All of these various groups support Windrip and look to him to “feed them handsomely when he should become president” (80). Windrip is also supported by idealistic reformers, foreign millionaires, and international bankers who believe that despite his clownish behavior, Windrip is the only one who can reinvigorate the economy and US capitalism.

Windrip and Prang travel around the country on their luxury train called the Forgotten Man Special. Windrip gives over 600 speeches ranging from short gas station addresses to two-hour speeches in massive auditoriums. Meanwhile, Sarason courts people of political influence, Beecroft speaks to professional associations, and Col Haik organizes political stunts. Dr. Hector Macgoblin, another close advisor of Windrip, focuses on teachers, academics, doctors, and writers.

This chapter begins by covering the opposition to Windrip’s campaign. In contrast to Windrip’s ostentatious and thrilling campaign, Trowbridge conducts a placid campaign that advocates incrementalism rather than revolutionary changes. FDR creates the Jeffersonian Party, arguing that Windrip was chosen by crazed emotions, rather than brains and hearts, and that Windrip is not a Democrat. FDR says that he likes Trowbridge personally but cannot support the entrenched privilege of the Republican Party. FDR’s Jeffersonian Party is mocked as the “Bull Mouse Party” by Windrip but attracts the support of many liberal congressmen and many socialists. Finally, various communist parties nominate seven different candidates, all of whom refuse to work together or with the Republicans or Jeffersonians.

Jessup finds himself confused by these political developments. While he admires FDR and finds it amusing to go against the Republicanism of Vermont, he doesn’t think the Jeffersonians have a chance of winning and so he campaigns for Trowbridge. The tone of Jessup’s editorials begins to change from amused and tolerant to viciously critical of Windrip and his inner circle.

Going out to interview the townspeople, Jessup is surprised to find strong support for Windrip in the normally-Republican Fort Beulah. He finds that most people only payed attention to three parts of Windrip’s manifesto: higher taxes on the rich; condemnation of African-Americans and Jews; and their belief that Windrip has promised $5,000 a year to the average, American citizen. Interviewing farmers and lower-class workers, Jessup finds them resentful of middle-class city dwellers and that they look forward to being elevated in status by Windrip.

Many of the elite of Fort Beulah aren’t much worried about the prospect of higher taxes, and hint to Jessup that Windrip will govern much more sensibly than the common people know. But the greatest evangelist for Windrip in Fort Beulah is Shad Ledue, who is recruited as a bouncer and travels around Vermont to guard pro-Windrip rallies.

On November 1, 1936, two days before the election, Windrip is to hold a mass rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. Tickets sell out almost instantly, but Jessup is able to get a ticket from an old journalist colleague and travels to New York for the first time in three years. Upon arriving, Jessup’s taxi gets stuck in the massive crowds, and he is forced to walk to the arena.

Here, Jessup first meets the Minute Men, which had been officially formed only three weeks ago as Windrip’s private militia. They now number between 300,000 and 400,000 strong. As he walks towards the rally, Jessup sees a group of Minute Men viciously beat an old man and then a Navy officer who attempts to intervene. Jessup flees, feeling helpless, but sees several more fights as the Minute Men viciously beat a group of communists and a Jewish girl. A group of Jeffersonians defend the communists and push the Minute Men back, but the police arrive and arrest the communists, the Jeffersonians, and the Jewish girl. They let the Minute Men go free.

Jessup takes his seat for the rally and sees that the crowd is working-class New York City people who consider themselves superior to the country folk, the latter of whom are concerned with making enough to get by. The rally starts with Windrip telling a boring and low-energy story, and Jessup begins to think that he overestimated Windrip’s chances of winning. However, Windrip then begins to ramble incoherently about “a mishmash of polite regards to Justice, Freedom, Equality, Order, Prosperity, Patriotism, and any number of other noble but slippery abstractions” (100) and Jessup finds himself becoming completely absorbed and entranced by the speech. An hour later, upon emerging from his trance, Jessup finds that he cannot remember a single thing Windrip said.

On November 3, Windrip is elected President. Jessup watches a triumphant, drunken parade move past his office, singing a new version of Gimmitch’s song that promises to punish anyone disloyal to Windrip. The next morning, Jessup finds a note left on his door that threatens harm unless Jessup fully submits to “The Chief,” Windrip’s new official title as leader. Jessup burns the note and doesn’t tell his family of its existence.