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Illustrated portrait of Shad Ledue

A character in It Can't Happen Here

Shad Ledue

Ledue begins as Doremus’s resentful hired man and rises rapidly through the Minute Men.

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

Ledue begins as Doremus’s resentful hired man and rises rapidly through the Minute Men. As district commissioner, he persecutes former social superiors and threatens Sissy. He arrests Doremus and sends him to Trianon. After Sissy exposes his corruption, Tasbrough imprisons him in the same camp, where inmates he abused kill him.

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