“Neither was their being Jews a mishap or a misfortune or an achievement to be ‘proud’ of. What they were was what they couldn’t get rid of—what they couldn’t even begin to want to get rid of. Their being Jews issued from their being themselves, as did their being American. It was as it was, in the nature of things, as fundamental as having arteries and veins, and they never manifested the slightest desire to change it or deny it, regardless of the consequences.” — The Plot Against America: A Novel by Philip Roth
One of the most depressingly relatable elements in The Plot Against America is Herman Levin’s stubborn faith in the idea that Walter Winchell can somehow fix things. Over our most recent past two decades—as the media has become as polarized as our politics—liberals and conservatives alike have clung to the idea that our favorite politician, pundit, or late-night comedian ought to be able to expose the corruption and lies of our opponents, if only given a chance to face those bastards one-on-one. “Boy, if only Obama were grilled by Sean Hannity,”some think. Or: “Man, I wish Jon Stewart would get a shot at Mitch McConnell.” Or: “Why won’t Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez debate Ben Shapiro?” Or: “Bernie is the only candidate who can take down Trump.” And so on. These daydreams don’t seem so pie-in-the-sky; that’s the damnable thing about them. What’s so maddening is that they seem perfectly reasonable.
As the fifth episode of The Plot Against America begins, Herman is losing what’s left of his cool, and all because Winchell’s broadcast has yet to address the looming crisis of President Lindbergh’s “Homestead 42” initiative, which would remove American Jews from their urban neighborhoods and send them to smaller rural communities across the country. Though this miniseries and the novel it’s based on are both largely works of fiction, Homestead 42 is a highly plausible extrapolation of the views Lindbergh espoused in his own diaries, where he once wrote, “A few Jews add strength and character to a country, but too many create chaos.” While the characters in The Plot Against America were worried their new president might copy Hitler and herd them into concentration camps, it seems that instead he’s planning to “add strength and character” to the United States by peppering Jews lightly across Montana and Kentucky.
The Levins—thanks to the machinations of Aunt Evelyn, and the “Just Folks”-boosterism of Sandy—are supposed to be Kentucky-bound. Metropolitan Life has reassigned Herman to Danville, a town of 6700, in what Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf and his minions proudly refer to as “a region of the country previously inaccessible to city-dwellers like us.” Evelyn sees this as a coup, both for her personally and for her sister Bess, who she’s sure will one day thank her for the rabbi’s vision.
Herman though has other ideas. He quits MetLife and goes to work for his brother Monty, packing fruit on the night shift and coming home in the mornings to a worried wife an eldest son who resents him for his decisions. Sandy thought he was headed back to Kentucky, and to his old friends the Mawhinneys. But he can’t control the choices other people make.
Much of “Part 5” of The Plot Against America is about people trying to rig things by proxy. Poor Rabbi Bengelsdorf is convinced he’s doing his people a great service with Homestead 42, but he’s disappointed that congress won’t approve a proper financial stipend to make this experiment amenable to Jews being asked to migrate to the middle of the country. (Henry Ford is unmoved by the rabbi’s protestations, saying that there’s noting “involuntary” about these moves, because the Jews can either take the deal or quit their jobs.)
Philip, meanwhile, tries to save his family by making the case to Aunt Evelyn that she should send his neighbor Seldon Wishnow and his mom (who also works at MetLife) to Kentucky instead of the Levins. Evelyn though misinterprets this request as Philip saying that he doesn’t want to leave behind his “best friend” Seldon. So she arranges it for the Wishnows to move too… which is especially embarrassing for Philip, after his father refuses to go to Danville. He’s directly responsible for sending the gawky Seldon to the boonies.
Perhaps the most world-changing example of “be careful what you wish for” though comes when a frustrated Herman writes a letter to Walter Winchell to describe exactly what Homestead 42 will mean to his family. Bess begs him not to do it. (“Let someone else write to Winchell,” she insists.) But he counters with, “The people who chase children down the street… They do not get to win.”
The result is a chain of regrettable circumstance. Winchell’s on-air excoriation of Homestead 42 leads to Rabbi Bengelsdorf writing a scathing rebuttal in The New York Times. The editorial gets Winchell fired. The firing leads to Winchell announcing a run for president. The Winchell campaign kicks off in Paterson, New Jersey, at a rally attended by Bund thugs, Herbert Hoover’s G-Men… and Herman Levin. Again, Bess asks her husband to leave the activism to somebody else; and again, he refuses, saying, “Want me to run and hide?”
It’s an admirable take: standing up to the goons who are overrunning the country Herman loves. He can only be who he is; and he won’t squelch it even for the most powerful people in America. But even while Herman is standing with a crowd of resistors in Paterson, he’s still hoping that somebody else—Walter Winchell, in this case—will be fighting his battles for him. And soon—in next week’s miniseries finale, in fact—he will discover the consequences.
Stray observations
- I don’t know if table-pounding in lieu of simple applause or a hearty “Hear! Hear!” was a thing in the ’40s, or if it’s meant to indicative of the Lindbergh administration’s fascist leanings. But man is it ever creepy.
- The decision to eschew the limited, Philip-centered narrative perspective of the novel has helped to flesh out a lot of The Plot Against America’s characters—in particular Bess and Evelyn. (In the book, Herman, Alvin and Sandy loomed pretty large in Philip’s reminiscences.) But this creative choice has come at the expense of Philip’s storyline, to a significant extent. The young actors playing Philip and Seldon are doing fine work; but the moment this week when Philip gives the departing Seldon his stamp album should be much more emotional. The stamp album’s ultimate fate is a bigger deal in the novel, in large part because it’s one of the things that matters most to the person telling the story.
- I’ve been enjoying the depiction of Anne Lindbergh here, which suggests that—unlike her husband—she may be an okay person. In real life (and in Roth’s novel), there’s some mystery regarding Mrs. Lindbergh’s culpability in her husband’s Nazi-backing. Were her own pro-Hitler writings just a naive product of their time; or was she similarly inclined toward an ideology rooted in notions of racial purity? Certainly her post-WWII reputation as a writer remained fairly decent, helped along by an acclaimed body of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
- What baseball team do they root for in Kentucky, you may wonder? Well, Cincinnati sits right across the Ohio River from Covington, so if the Levins had made the move to Danville they’d probably have to become Reds fans.
54 Comments
I was surprised how quickly Philip threw Seldon over the side, but at least he had the grace to feel shitty about it.
True, but I will give lots of leeway to a ten year old trying to make his way as a Jew in a fascist America dodging Hoover’s FBI goons.
Is it just me or is the series moving too quickly? I figured that the entire series would last 6 episodes but if they are trying to keep with the book, they will need to cover a lot in 1 hour next week. Or are they intentionally not going to follow the book to a T?
Hey did anyone else notice the shot of the waiter finagling with the wine glass at the wedding? Was it symbolic, like foreshadowing the Rabbi’s replacement or was it plot related, ie someone’s getting poisoned?
Gotta say, I really bristle when you compare every element of the show to the novel and make predictions for the show based on it. Not everyone has read the novel, so not everyone cares, and adaptations should stand on their own, anyway, unbound from harsh comparisons to their source material. That especially holds true. in a miniseries that has to cut out or adjust so much of the novel’s DNA to work in the medium of television.
Last week I asked for a Walter Winchell or a Joseph Welch to call out Bengelsdorf for his dangerous blind loyalty. I was not expecting Winchell ……. to run for President. This story is kind of off the rails but it is certainly a cautionary tale of fascism we all need right now.Positioning Turturro/Bengelsdorf as some kind of Sonderkommando, the Jewish men who helped Nazis in the camps is so uncomfortable to watch. Even worse Ryder’s Evelyn so easily swayed. The contrast to both was beautifully delivered tonight by Zoe Kazan; her strength and fury is what this story needed. I have no idea if people are watching, but it is compelling
I’m watching it 🖐🏼. This has actually been my favorite ongoing tv show, though that’s only out of 3 shows I watch weekly. (the others being DEVS and Westworld) There’s just a certain nervous tension in the show that draws me in. I haven’t read the book for this, so I was surprised that there was only one episode left. Seems like there would be 2-3 more.
Agreed. I’ve read (and was a big fan of) the book, and I can’t see how they are going to include everything left in the book—several key happenings — in a final hour (or even an hour and a half) episode without some major changes or removals.
Talk about uncomfortable. Given current circumstances hearing the “loyalist” radio news report completely misrepresent the facts to serve the administration’s purposes is a gut punch. Like, I feel like we are thiiiiiiiiis close to this reality and I don’t have a lot of confidence that we won’t get there.
Woman on Twitter who is a Trump supporter called out David Simon for his “thinly veiled” Anti Trump/Republican series and making it seem like what happens in mini series is happening now to some extent. She’s not even bright enough to realize that it’s exactly what he’s doing. Simon replied: Not thinly veiled. Straight allegory of a rank populist’s ability to metastasize fear, racism and xenophobia. Nothing subliminal that needs to scream. It is text itself, not even subtext, directly addressing what has gone shamefully wrong with America in a normal tone of voice. “Best President of her lifetime” tanked the economy and is killing tens of thousands of Americans.
Zoe Kazan is killing it here. As the tension mounts from ep to ep, you can just feel her rage and powerlessness grow (or maybe that’s me…). Her ultimatum to Herman was palpable. But so sublte; beautiful acting.
But even while Herman is standing with a crowd or resistors in Paterson, he’s still hoping that somebody else—Walter Winchell, in this case—will be fighting his battles for him.I don’t follow this thinking at all; that Herman isn’t running himself doesn’t mean he’s not fighting his own battle, anymore than people supporting Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders want them to fight their battles for them. A political candidacy is inherently a collective action.The kids are easily the least-interesting part of this, and I do think the performers are part of that, but there’s also not much in the writing to serve as a hook.I’m not sure how this is all going to be concluded in one episode.
If they are going to ditch the epilogue, it is POSSIBLE they could do it. However, it’s going to be rushed.
david simon loves the slow burn, but this show is leaving an excessive amount of plot resolution to one episode.
table-pounding as applauding is a German thing, I was very surprised when I first heard it to as a visiting teacher, but it dates back to when students had fancy canes and applauded by hitting the floor with them. Why it reads as fascism…well
Hasn’t it always been the tradition in British Parliament?
I think “Hoover’s G-Men” is a reference to J. Edgar Hoover, right? Those were FBI guys watching Winchell’s speech?
Correct. Nothing to do with HERBERT Hoover, who had been out of office for over 10 years when these events would have occurred…
There’s so much wrong your post.We don’t need a ‘cautionary tale of fascism’ in this country. 99% of the western world has been of the same mind that the Nazis were bad for the last 70 years, and that’s unlikely to change.The real ‘dangers’ are things we’ve been going through the last ten years, with too big to fail banks, and pandemics that began in labs from devastating the environment, and then covered up by authoritarian governments that we’re already perfectly aware of as being a bad thing.Americans will never again have the luxury of confronting an enemy as simplistic and evil as the Nazis again. Referring to Donald Trump or his supporters as fascists or nazis, is just a naive, nostalgic yearning for that simplicity.,Beyond that – Bengelsdorf does not rerepresent the Sonderkommandos. The phenomena of the Sonderkommando’s role in the holocaust was one of despair in a nightmarish hell realm. The Sonderkommandos would themselves be periodically liquidated, because they would inevitably revolt after being forced to do it long enough.Bengelsdorf’s story has no parallels with Nazi Germany, where Jews, for a decade before the Holocaust were brutally oppressed and then mass-slaughtered under the cover of war. The Nazis didn’t want to resettle them in the heartland or send them to summers with German families, they wanted to corral them all in tiny ghettos where they could be more easily exterminated.You’re making the assumption that America is Nazified, and that Nazi America follows the same arc as Nazi Germany – but that isn’t what the book is about.
The Cincinnati Reds were NL champions in 1939 (losing the World Series to the Yankees) and won the World Series in 1940. So I would think that the Reds would naturally spring to Herman’s mind, especially if he was a Yankees fan. Although maybe he doesn’t know his geography that well.However, the case could easily be made that Danville-ians would have been Cardinals fans. The Cardinals’ radio station, KMOX, with their 50,000 watt AM transmitter, could and can still be heard way more than 300 miles—the distance between St. Louis and Danville—at night. It reaches over 40 states and several Canadian provinces.That’s what made them the Middle America’s team for decades. They were also the southernmost and westernmost major league baseball team until 1955. And have won more World Series titles than any team but the Yankees.Although they hadn’t been in the World Series since 1934, and wouldn’t be again until later that year in 1942, where they would beat the Yankees. But maybe that doesn’t happen in this reality because the country burns in the finale.
Some of us haven’t read the book. Please be mindful of finale spoilers.
yeah, i was going to say this. most older members of my family (if they care about baseball) tend to root for the cardinals.but, in reality, they would probably find baseball isn’t very popular in kentucky and would realize that even back then this was a basketball crazed state. legendary kentucky coach adolph rupp would have already been at kentucky for about a decade at this time. and danville isn’t far from lexington where the university of kentucky is.
Worth noting that many Americans followed baseball solely through box scores and magazine reporting for decades, so it is entirely possible that people mostly picked up on whatever team was reported on in their local papers, too. And of course, an underrated truth is that many people cared far more for local minor league and semipro teams than they did for the distant major league squads (16 concentrated in just 11 cities)
It’s Pete Rose’s birthday today!He was born in in Cincy 1941!
In addition to the championship, the Reds were owned by Powell Crosley at that time. He was responsible for turning WLW into a 500kW station for a number of years (and also a 50kW station when not super-pewered), thus allowing Reds games to be heard nearly everywhere. They also played the first night game in 1935, and Vander Meer’s back-to-back no-hitters in ‘38 were a big deal, too.I also found it peculiar that he hadn’t thought of the Reds (and not just because I’m a native Cincinnatian!).
Really enjoying this show but Turturro’s Bengelsdorf accent is so jarringly out-of-place that it takes me out of the story. He’s an excellent actor, of course, but a rabbi with not just a Southern drawl but full on Foghorn Leghorn accent is bizarre.
If these guys only knew what the Soviets are going to get up to…
Quick note — I think “Hoover’s G-men” refers to J. Edgar Hoover, not Herbert Hoover
You are correct. J.E. Hoover was director of the FBI during this time and of course he dedicated their resources towards chasing down communists and their associates.
I was struck by your comment about Mrs. Lindbergh. Maybe I’m misreading her scenes, but I see her as complicit with her husband; her role, however, is to be the velvet glove around the mailed fist. She is just polite and friendly enough to assuage Bengelsdorf (and by extension, any supporter with a hint of concern about Lindbergh) that nothing is awry, but she does nothing to actually address those people’s concerns. Pointedly, the result of her conversation with Bengelsdorf is that she kicks the can down the road, so he doesn’t expect any help until after the midterms. She is like a Southern housewife in the Jim Crow South who gives “the help” an extra tip but still eagerly votes for segregationists.
I agree. She creeps me out almost more than he does (though, obviously, he’s been seen only in flickers).
Oh yeah, that in-person RSVP to the wedding was unbearable, in that Evelyn and the rabbi take her at her word, while the audience (or *some* of the audience) knows she wouldn’t set foot within a mile of that wedding. She’s just the kinder face putting a sheen of normalcy and manners on the racism of the president and Ford et al. Lindbergh deployed her in the last ep, too, to manage the Jewish couple while he saved face with the visiting Nazis.
Man, I feel bad for Seldon… If the Levins had made the move to Kentucky, Philip could at least physically blend in. Seldon looks like Cousin Kyle from South Park.
I think a change of scenery will do him some good
Put some pink on those cheeks. It’ll go well with the bloody bruises he’ll undoubtedly endure.
I get why the rabbi is in favor of trying to get his tribe assimilate more into American society, be less insular, but why would those in Klan country (south, middle America) be on board on this? If there is enough of a current of Anti-Semitism running through the country to create the tension of the show, wouldn’t you’d just want to move Jews into their own ghettos as much as possible?
No Rabbi would ever suggest moving to a place without a synagogue especially with Philip yet to be a Bar Mitzvah
That may be true, but it might be the case that Bengelsdorf, who sees himself as a fully assimilated American, may have implicitly adopted from mainstream American Protestantism the idea of faith as an individual choice, not a communal one, and that element of his “American” identity has overridden the communal nature of Judaism in his personal theology. The show hasn’t said that explicitly, but it’s certainly the case that highly assimilated Jewish communities (Reform Jews in prewar Germany and in contemporary America) have pretty successfully articulated very distinct theologies from the interpretations of the Orthodox Jewish mainstream. Some Reform congregations in Germany even changed the Sabbath day to Sunday to align with German Christians.
I think it’s pretty clear that Bengelsdorf sees his actions less as a method to make American Jews better Jews and more as a method to make American Jews better Americans.
Wow, great point about individual v. communal faith identities. If that’s the case (and I think I agree with regard to Bengelsdorf), how ironic is it that he’s chosen *to lead a congregation* — the opposite of individualistic faith?!
I think that Bengelsdorf has some seriously buried self-loathing.
One might also consider the contempt with which earlier arriving, typically bourgeois German Jewish immigrants often viewed the later arriving peasant Jews of Eastern Europe.
There’s a long tradition in America of large segments of newly semi-assimilated populations being among the worst persecutors of the next round of immigrants or society’s latest whipping boy. There’s a deeply felt insecurity to their position of often grudging, recent tolerance that makes them eager to prove that they’re certainly not anything like these strange foreigners and can hate them as much as any real ‘Murican.
I read the underlying reasoning here as a way to break up Jewish voting blocks and thus disenfrancise the (majority liberal) population in a conservative government. The Klan of course wouldn’t be on board, but perhaps the fear of anti-Semitic violence would be enough to speed up that assimilation process. Also, on the TPAA podcast, David Simon expands on the rabbi’s background as a German Jew in the south. German Jews were among the most successful and most assimilated in Europe (hence, perhaps, Sandy’s characterization of his folks as “ghetto Jews), and likely “completed” that assimilation quicker than other Jewish people while in America. It could stand that the rabbi is so far removed from the 1st/2nd generation Jews in the Levin’s community that he wouldn’t even be thinking about antisemitism in the heartland. His lack of foresight and complicity in this mess is truly a shanda. But Tuturro is phenomenal in this role, even if every gentile sounding thing he says makes my skin crawl.
Thanks for sharing about the podcast. That is a great breakdown. I enjoyed your analysis too—that is a brilliant political play by the Lindberg administration
I see the reasoning behind relocation less as breaking up political blocs than eliminating cultural enclaves. Dispersing individual families throughout the hinterland will disconnect them from synagog and community and diminish (and eventually eliminate) concentrations of Jewish culture, resulting in “deracinated” Jews within a generation or so. Something that isn’t clear to me from the show: Is the “Just Folks” program just for Jews or is it aimed at what they used to call “white ethnics” generally?
Begelsdorf is the worst kind of collaborator, one who believes in the enemy’s cause (clearly because of his family’s early assimilation, and the power & priviledge all this affords him).
I hesitate to mention it since I don’t have enough knowledge on the subject to be comfortable about the details, but this sounds like what _actually_ happened to Indigenous people around the globe, especially in the United States. The “Indian Residential Schools” and Trail of Tears…. it’s enough to make your heart sear with sympathy.This show scares me so greatly because it’s astonishingly close to reality. My parents and siblings all live in the US and I recently moved to Canada 7 years ago — intending for it to be temporary — so my partner (a Canadian) could to go back to school (turns out Canadian universities in your own province are astronomically less expensive than their US counterparts).I literally got my citizenship last month and am hesitant to return. I’ve cried a handful of times watching some of the shit that’s going on down there (COVID-19 response notwithstanding). For the love of all that’s holy I want to move to where it’s warm, but Vancouver may be the best I get.The scariest thing I ever heard was my brother, with his wife and 2 kids in tow, tremulously asking my mother, a Holocaust survivor, “When did you know it was time to leave?”
I think you mean J. Edgar Hoover’s G-men?And thank you on the Reds call. Of course people from KY root for the Reds. Did Roth not know that or was he, assuming it was in the book, making a point about the Levin’s regional baseball ignorance?
It wasn’t in the book… just on the TV series.
Listening to Rabbi Bengelsdorf speak is like listening to Hannibal Lecter. Every word he utters is sinister.“Does that begin to allay your fears?”
Series finale next weekend. Will anything good ever happen in this show? It’s frustratingly depressing.
Why did they take out Philip ogling his aunt’s boobs?
Strongly recommend listening to the podcast for the series, David Simon and Peter Sagal from Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, discuss each episode.It’s fantastic.
Though I understand the focus of the show is on domestic
events in the US, I am disappointed that the show seems to be so far ignoring
the catastrophic global consequences of a rabidly isolationist US that appeases
the Nazis in 1941-1942. I haven’t read the book, so maybe it also has the same
flaw. The newsreels so far in the show seem to be unchanged in terms of the
flow of the war in Europe and Africa… one newsreel from 1942 even leads a
character to remark on the Soviets successfully fighting back and another to
allude to Britain still fighting the Germans in North Africa. This not only
stretches credulity but seems to be missing much of the larger point of why an
isolationist beating Roosevelt in 1940 would have been so bad for humanity in
general and particularly for jews everywhere. Churchill and the British people,
and Stalin and the Soviet people were tough and determined, but without US-made
war materials and the hope of US intervention, how could they realistically
hang on to the same degree even through mid-1942? Churchill’s view on the UK’s
prospects without US assistance are clear from his writings, and Khrushchev
claimed Stalin had told him privately that “If we had had to fight Nazi Germany
one on one, we could not have stood up against Germany’s pressure.” A world
where Nazi Germany defeats both Britain and the Soviet Union thanks to US
isolationism is a truly dark place, and would have provided both a more
plausible and ominous backdrop in the show for the events it depicts in
America.
True, these 6 eps lacks a certain scope.The 2nd & 3rd eps were a pretty slow burn now that there is so much to wrap up in one last episode. Plus, as you say, what is going on in Europe & Africa? St Paul’s Cathedral was mentioned as a difference, but that’s about it.