Fridge / It Can't Happen Here

Fridge Horror

• In a best case scenario, the resistance will dislodge Haik's regime, but then what? Windrip's regime gutted the educational system, burned books, and suppressed any real high culture. The result is that youth and young adults have no background in history, literature, civics, or world events. How on earth will Americans rebuild their country if a large chunk of the population is poorly educated, with no sense of what a democratic government even looks like?
  • Well, later history shows us how that might play out in the form of any number of post-colonial states, which achieved independence despite lacking their own native, educated middle classes, the colonial powers having never invested in local infrastructure beyond what was necessary for resource extraction. Many of these countries fell into civil war and their own, homegrown forms of tyranny, often becoming pawns in the Cold War struggle whose independence only existed on paper. Picture that, writ large in the United States. The best-case scenario is something like the Republic of India, a proudly independent democracy but a poor one plagued by instability, internal tensions, dynastic politics, and vast inequality. Worse-case scenarios include a communist revolution, balkanization, religious extremism, a simple return to fascism, and subversion by foreign powers. And on that note...
  • The danger of demagogues and/or foreign governments taking advantage of the situation would be great. Bear in mind, also, that Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and, one presumes, the emperor Hirohito are all running around in this world (Haik has a summit meeting with the Fuhrer in Prague at one point). If either or both of them decides to take advantage of the situation, the European democracies will be in a much tougher spot without a strong United States to rely on for aid.
• At the end of the novel, Doremus disseminates information to dissidents as part of the resistance against the fascist regime. He's far from his loved ones and is constantly on the run to evade Corpos. When readers remember that (1) he will be doing this for a long time because it will take years to overthrow the regime in a best case scenario, (2) he's old and may not live long enough to see the regime end, and (3) the chances of him being killed by Corpos are high, it's depressing to realize that he will probably never see his loved ones again.
• Several times in the decades since this book was written, America has started down the very same path described in this book. So far, the American public has come to its senses each time, before reaching the point of no return. So far.