It Can't Happen Here

It’s December 10, 1937, Windrip’s birthday, and he commemorates the occasion by announcing the opening of concentration camps to be run by the Minute Men, as the prisons have become full. Jessup suspects that these camps are also designed to give an outlet to any Minute Men who wish to amuse themselves by torturing prisoners, in contrast to the old-guard prison-keepers, who have attempted to maintain some degree of professionalism.

The next day, a modern school for girls just north of Fort Beulah is closed, and the Trianon concentration camp is opened in its place. Jessup also begins receiving word from journalists around the country of armed resistance against the Corpo regime, which is violently put down by the Minute Men.

After the opening of the concentration camps, fear is now “nameless and omnipresent” (224), and those who still talk about politics do so with coded language. Arrests become more and more common, and it’s no longer only the unknown and defenseless who are arrested, but celebrities, journalists, judges, and army officers. Book-burnings begin; any book that is deemed a threat to the state is to be destroyed.

One evening, the Jessup family is having dinner when Shad Ledue arrives with Minute Men troops to search for and destroy any banned material.