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Illustrated portrait of Philip Jessup

A character in It Can't Happen Here

Philip Jessup

Philip is Doremus’s son, a lawyer who chooses accommodation and becomes a Corpo military judge.

The book

Cover of It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
It Can't Happen HereSinclair Lewis, 1935

An American dictatorship arrives through elections, promises, resentment, and a leader who insists only he can fix the country.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Philip is Doremus’s son, a lawyer who chooses accommodation and becomes a Corpo military judge. He values career, order, and personal safety over his father’s resistance. The choice estranges him from the family. The novel does not give him a decisive conversion or final punishment, leaving collaboration as an ongoing condition rather than a neatly resolved arc.

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