Lindbergh, Isolationist Pres 1940, Rise of Fascism: 'The Plot Against America' Philip Roth Novel HBO

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- Charles Lindbergh, Walter Winchell and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (L to R) are among the public figures fictionalized in Philip Roth's 'The Plot Against America' (2004).
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- 'The True History Behind ‘The Plot Against America.’ Smithsonian Magazine, March 16, *2020. - Ed.

- Philip Roth’s classic novel, newly adapted by HBO, envisions a world in which Charles Lindbergh wins the 1940 presidential election.-

- The main conceit of 'The Plot Against America' is a fictional Lindbergh presidency. Set between June 1940 & Oct. 1942, the novel opens with the aviator’s unexpected bid as the Republican Party’s nominee & proceeds to envision how the war would have unfolded if the US had not only stayed out of the fight, but colluded with the Axis powers & instituted Nazi-inspired restrictions on Jewish Americans’ freedom. During the 1930s, Lindbergh & FDR were arguably the 2 most famous men in the country. But while many respected the pilot, few viewed him as a viable political candidate. -

'The Plot Against America' unfolds in a world much like our own. Set in Newark, New Jersey, on the eve of World War II, Philip Roth’s 2004 novel finds its protagonist, a fictionalized version of the 7-year-old author himself, leading a banal existence punctuated by nightly radio news broadcasts, dinners with his all-American Jewish family & neighborhood excursions. Then, the writer-narrator recounts, “[T]he Republicans nominated Lindbergh and everything changed.” What follows is an alternate history penned in the same vein as Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, a 1962 novel recently adapted for TV by Amazon Studios.



- Charles Lindbergh (right) and Senator Burton K. Wheeler (left) at a May 23, 1941, "America First" rally in New York. America First Committee, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee


Like High Castle, The Plot Against America—the subject of a new HBO limited series of the same name—poses the age-old question of “What if?” But while the former depicts a world in which the Axis powers won the war, the latter places its departure from the historical record prior to the conflict’s peak, envisioning a virulently isolationist US that nevertheless ends up entangled in international affairs. Blending truth & imagination, 'The Plot Against America' pits aviator Charles A. Lindbergh against incumbent FDR in the 1940 presidential election. Voters’ choice, argues the Spirit of St. Louis pilot and fervent “America Firster” in a series trailer, is not between Lindbergh & Roosevelt, but “between Lindbergh and war.”

Roth’s account of a celebrity-turned-politician winning the presidency on a platform of fearmongering and “othering” proved more prophetic than he could have predicted.

“It’s a story of an American dystopia,” explains “The Plot Against America” showrunner David Simon. “It seems startlingly prescient in that it anticipates a politician who seizes upon a very simple message & is able to activate the worst fears & impulses of a significant number of Americans. He gets them to relinquish not only power, but some of the most essential bulwarks of self-governance.” While the Roth family, renamed the Levins in the HBO show, & many of the characters mentioned in The Plot Against America are based on real people, much of the narrative is entirely contrived. From the true extent of Lindbergh’s anti-Semitic views to the rise of the “America First” movement...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-history-behind-plot-against-america-180974365/
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- Review, TIME Magazine, https://time.com/5802828/plot-against-america-hbo-review/
HBO's Philip Roth Adaptation The Plot Against America Is Essential Viewing for All Americans

- The Plot Against America: Official Teaser | HBO, 2020. From creators David Simon and Ed Burns comes The Plot Against America, an alternate American history story of the country’s turn to fascism told through the eyes of a working-class Jewish family in New Jersey. Starring Zoe Kazan, Morgan Spector, Winona Ryder, and John Turturro.

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1. 'Like Hitler, people thinking he doesn't mean what he says..this w Lindbergh'

- 'The Plot Against America: Script to Screen | Episode 1

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2. The book was very good. The mini-series is worth the watch.

However, it glosses over quite a bit from the book. It does give an account that is starting to look like our current situation in some respects minus the overt anti-Semitism. There are lots of good Court Jews throughout the book, which is something we see nowadays for sure.

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3. The series is quite well done, I started watching tonite. There

Last edited Mon May 9, 2022, 02:43 AM - Edit history (1)

are some parallels to this anxious time but taken much further into full blown fascism. I hope we never reach that point here or anywhere else again. The acting is excellent and the characters are very well cast.

Court Jews is new to me. The film's southern flair with the Colonel Sanders mannerisms is a little heavy handed but I get the characterizations. Mercifully my parents didn't know about the fascist politics of Ford and Lindy, sickening.