“Though on the morning after the election disbelief prevailed, especially among the pollsters, by the day after that everybody seemed to understand everything, and the radio commentators and the news columnists made it sound as if Roosevelt’s defeat had been preordained.” — The Plot Against America: A Novel by Philip Roth
Whatever your opinion of the current U.S. presidential administration, it’s an indisputable fact that election night in 2016 blindsided a lot of Americans. It’s true that a few pessimistic leftist progressives had been saying for months that a Republican victory was inevitable. But most Democrats seemed to trust the pollsters, as well as their own sense of right and wrong. As the evening unfolded, a sick sense of dread spread across some households, exacerbated—both that night and in the days that followed—by the tone of giddy wonder struck by the broadcast media.
For decades now, the press has treated politics like a sporting event. And here, at last, was a true upset. Immediately, the pundits shifted into analysis mode, retroactively insisting the outcome was obvious. Meanwhile, the citizens with elephant pennants on their walls gloated mercilessly, as their neighbors in the donkey jerseys wept and stewed. It was a weird week. It’s been an even weirder three-and-a-half years.
I have no idea whether David Simon and Ed Burns were inspired to bring Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America to television due to the uncanny similarities between the 1940 presidential race in the book and what happened in the real world in 2016. But there’s definitely a sense of passion and purpose to the miniseries’ second episode, which deals most directly with the run-up to election night. “Part 2” isn’t just a cockeyed nostalgia-piece from an alternate timeline. It’s saying something.
Primarily, it’s about the two oldest men in the Levin household: Herman, who believes everything Walter Winchell tells him, and is certain that the Democratic incumbent Franklin Delano Roosevelt will crush the Republican upstart Charles Lindbergh; and his nephew Alvin, who has a generally sour outlook on the world ,and thus knows in his bones that fascism is about sweep America.
Herman and Alvin have similar values, but vastly different perspectives on what their country has to offer. A lot of this episode is about what divides them—with the prospects for Lindy being the major point of contention. Herman mocks Lindbergh’s boring, repetitive 41-word speeches, and talks about how Roosevelt just sounds presidential. Alvin though hears Rabbi Bengelsdorf deliver a ringing endorsement of the Republican’s anti-war platform and minutes later insists to Herman that this will be the turning point in the campaign. He delivers one of the most memorable lines from Roth’s novel, saying the Rabbi is “koshering Lindbergh for the goyim.”
The Levins are also split on the issue of Alvin’s bullying boss, Abe Steinheim (Ned Eisenberg). To Herman, guys like Abe deserve respect, whatever their kinks. A successful and influential figure in the Jewish community, who employs kids from the neighborhood and helps them get college degrees, Abe is someone to admire, even if he’s demanding (and a little sleazy). Besides, to Uncle Herman, anyone who expects to make something of themselves is going to have to learn to endue an Abe Steinheim or two.
To Alvin though, his boss is a creep—no better than Lindbergh, really, even though he’s Jewish. To him, these powerful people are all rich, arrogant, and acting exclusively out of their own self-interest and bigotry. The scene in this episode where Alvin gets fed up and quits (with a hearty “go fuck yourself”) is in the novel; but Simon and Burns are more overt than Roth about why Steinheim matters. The Plot Against America is in a way about how a mass delusion takes hold; and here even the opinionated anti-fascist Herman Levin finds it all too easy to overlook a man’s flaws, just because he wants to believe that man ultimately stands for something positive.
The rest of “Part 2” is more or less as strong as the Herman and Alvin scenes… although, to be totally honest, the Philip material has yet to fully click. The sequence where Phil learns from his best friend how to follow strangers around comes straight from the book, but it’s mainly significant for the conclusion the boy comes to after sneaking around rich neighborhoods: that the Levins must be poor, because they live on a block where kids play in the street, not in big backyards. This is one of the most disturbing (and, for some, frighteningly familiar) ideas in The Plot Against America: that some happy, prosperous, patriotic Americans would suddenly feel they’re actually alien and undesirable to the majority of their countrymen.
We see this recur throughout the episode: when Bess gets a job at a department store and waits on two shoppers sporting Lindbergh campaign buttons; when some of the patrons at Herman’s favorite newsreel theater applaud a Lindbergh speech; when Republicans start talking about “taking back America.” Meanwhile, despite their family’s objections, Sandy and Aunt Evelyn can’t help but be captivated by both Lindbergh and Rabbi Bengelsdorf, who seem so confident, so virile… so American. They both seem to be promising something that a lot of people—Jews and gentiles alike—hadn’t known they wanted.
Herman and Alvin though are united in their horror. Both haunt the newsreel theater, but take different messages from what they see. They look at scenes of a bombed-out London, and while Herman sees a warning—“Stop Hitler now!”—which he’s sure his fellow citizens will heed, Alvin sees a fight he knows he’s going to have to join on his own, since his Lindbergh-loving countrymen won’t.
Still, they do both keep watching. In one of this episode’s most pertinent scenes, Herman almost walks by the theater, but stops and buys a ticket almost compulsively—kind of like how a lot of us today can’t stop ourselves from refreshing Twitter a dozen times an hour. In the novel, Herman describes the nature of this news-addiction to Bess, saying it’s a way of reminding himself of what’s really going on, while everyone else around him seems either ignorant or content. Herman rants:
“How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.”
Stray observations
- Sometimes locations and performances in a movie or TV show don’t match what we might’ve imagined when we read the book. But sometimes an adaptation shows us things we hadn’t really considered. The look of the younger Levins’ bedroom in The Plot Against America—up the stairs, in a converted attic with no door—isn’t something I thought much about when I read the novel. But it’s such a distinctive space, and in no way generic. It reminds me of the kind of funky little rooms I spent time in throughout my childhood: bedrooms and playrooms and dens that friends and family built into corners of their houses that were otherwise hard to fill.
- One of the subtler themes of The Plot Against America is that popular culture can unite us and brighten our spirits in dark times, but can also—unintentionally—delude us into thinking that everything’s proceeding as normal. I appreciate that the thoughtfulness of the depiction of radio and the movies in this miniseries thus far, whether it’s Evelyn talking about what shade of lipstick Barbara Stanwyck wears (according to Louella Parsons) or it’s Herman and Bess doing their Burns & Allen routine.
- Next week brings one of the most tense and telling sections of the novel, where the Levins visit Washington. That’s chapter two of the book; and it’s episode three of this six-episode series. We’ve really only made it through the first chapter so far, in that the election of Lindbergh happens between chapters one and two of The Plot Against America. Simon and Burns have been shuffling some incidents and characters from later in the story and putting them earlier, but still: I’m very curious to see what eventually gets cut to squeeze eight more book chapters into the final three TV episodes.
45 Comments
Yeah, that queasy look on Herman’s face was painfully familiar.
The montage of him listening to the election returns on the radio legit made my chest tight and was practically a PTSD flashback.
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i know that David Simon projects are slow burns, but this is show is going at a glacial pace. Hoping the pay off for this is more “the wire” and less “treme”
I’ve just never in the mood to watch Treme.
that’s probably because it was really, really, really boring.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/0075e75e-4b58-414c-97a8-734b55c1d631
and one of its biggest chirps was “the unrecognized musicians” but it utterly overlooked hip hop, metal, punk, anything that wasn’t slightly-off Bourbon Street trad jazz
except for that one episode with eyehategod. that was cool to see. EHG might be the most entertaining live band i’ve ever seen.
I just rewatched Treme after a visit to New Orleans. I thought it magical, a profound celebration of America’s richest cultural enclave. Sadly, NOLA is down for the count again with coronavirus.
Once again, a reminder: the great American hero and anti-war activist Charles Lindbergh was not a fascist in any way, shape or form – and the America First movement was an *anti-war* movement open to all except “Nazists, Fascists, Communists or members of other groups that place the interests of any other nation above those of our own country”. It was supported by future presidents John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford, future Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, future Senator Peter Dominick and Sargent Shriver among millions and millions of others. America had just previously participated in the global calamity of WWI and the mood of the entire country was, quite sensibly, anti-war. Once America was attacked Lindbergh, being a great patriot, immediately sought to re-enlist. This was blocked by FDR who refused to utilize the services of the greatest pilot in the world in a vindictive effort to punish Lindbergh for not wanting to send American boys to die in a foreign war in which America had no part at the behest of the military-industrial complex. Not to be deterred by a mere president Lindbergh went to the pacific theater as a consultant where he flew fifty combat missions as a civilian. The idea that Philip Roth, of all people, would have done so much in that great struggle is so ludicrous as to be obscene.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
This is an absolutely ludicrous take, especially given the fact that we know the ending: isolationism was a hopelessly naive and misguided attitude that, had it remained U.S. policy, would have led to an absolutely nightmarish outcome for world history.While the American First Committee (and associated isolationist movement) may not have been fascist or pro-Nazi, its outlook and goal to keep America out of the war certainly aligned with Nazi (and until June 1941, Soviet) interests, and it is undeniable that many pro-isolationists also had pro-fascist or pro-Nazi sympathies, such as the German-American Bund. Remarks by Lindbergh and his wife Anne (who praised Hitler in her letters and published a booklet in 1940 calling fascism “the wave of the future”) certainly indicate a comfort with Nazism that was concerning to many at the time and is absolutely abhorrent today.Moreover, the current of xenophobia and anti-Semitism which ran through the isolationist movement was highly visible and commented upon by his contemporaries. Lindbergh told Reader’s Digest that “we can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies and dilution by foreign races” and in his infamous Des Moines speech made it clear that he attributed calls for the United States to enter the war to a conspiracy of Jews.So while I’m glad Lindbergh changed his tune once the bombs started falling on Pearl Harbor, that doesn’t excuse the fact that until then he had vocally supported a policy that would prove to be profoundly wrong and morally bankrupt and in so doing championed some truly gross views.
Indeed, we know the ending: non-interventionism, unlike pacifism, mandated that America should fight only in defense. America was attacked, the country – overwhelmingly non-interventionist – galvanized for war as is consistent with non-interventionism, and we conquered the Japanese Empire and Nazi Germany.
While I appreciate your consistency (both your foreign policy views and penchant for guilt by association are thoroughly neocon) you’ve not only not refuted, but have failed to even challenge a single assertion I’ve made. Lindbergh was not a fascist and was a war hero who did more to prevent America from becoming fascist than the detestable Philip Roth – or anyone watching this ludicrous show – could ever dream of doing.
kill yourself
You’re going to commit suicide soon
Your assertion that the United States was “overwhelmingly non-interventionist” prior to Pearl Harbor is demonstrably false, as indicated by opinion polling at the time. While it is true that at the beginning of World War II the American public favored remaining neutral (in an October 1939 Gallup poll 71% opposed declaring war on Germany in order to save the UK and France) this view began to change as the war intensified. By September 1940, a year later, 52% of Americans felt that the US should risk war in order to help Britain, a number that increased to 60% by November 1940 and to 67% by March 1941 (Gallup, Gallup). By November 1941, 68% of Americans felt that the defeat of Germany was more important than keeping out of the war. Following Pearl Harbor, 91% of Americans agreed with the declaration of war on Germany despite the fact that it was Japan that attacked us.Sure, Lindbergh never claimed to be a fascist. And sure, once the war began he served his country with distinction. Unfortunately, I can neither forget nor forgive Lindbergh for unrepentantly espousing xenophobic and anti-Semitic views which aligned with Nazi thinking and for championing policies which—-had it not been for an ill-judged Japanese sneak attack—-might well have made possible a Nazi victory in World War II. For that, I have no problem with him being made into the villain of this work of alternative historical fiction. And yes, I believe that the United States entering the war on the side of the Allies, Pearl Harbor or no, was both in the national best interest and a moral decision—- if that makes me a neocon in your eyes, so be it.
Checking this guys post history it’s pretty clear he created the account just to rage against the Jewish ‘neocons’. And I thought the virus was giving all the internet crazies something to occupy themselves with.
His lone comment on my reaction to the show is a sarcastic missive along the lines of “If only Jews had some sort of access to mainstream media.” Thankfully it’s still in the greys, and I’m not going to respond to it lest it get promoted.
So, pretty much what you’d expect from a Linderbergh stan.
I stand corrected regarding the rapid ramping-up of pro-war sentiment after the German invasion of France. You are correct about that, and I was wrong.
The point, however, is that the overwhelming support for non-interventionism (prior to 1940) demonstrates that opposition to entering the war was not, in any way, tied to an adherence to the ideology of fascism.
Lindbergh did not just never claim to be a fascist, he never advocated for fascism, and risked his life flying fifty combat missions as a civilian to keep America free from fascism.
Not a fascist, but fully willing to allow fascism in the name of racism is just peachy with you.You’re a fucking clown.
Here is a brief list of pro-Nazi amd Anti-Semetic shit Linbergh did that I found after fives minutes on Wikipedia.1) Accepted a medal from Herman Goring and did not give it back even when he was encouraged to after Kristallnacht.2. Snubbed Einstein3. Planned to move to Germany in 19384. Made reference to Germany’s “Jewish problem” and said too many Jews can “cause a reaction”5 described European blood as “our most priceless possession”.6 According to Henry Ford (a noted Anti-Semite) “only wants to talk about the Jews”7 Married a Bavarian woman and had several German mistresses.Also its been said Lindbergh was initially sent to Germany to spy on their aircraft capabilities and the reason FDR blocked him from service is because he thought Lindbergh had actually switched sides and was working for Germany. So Lindbergh was only allowed to assist as a civilian to keep him away from anything top secret. Whatever the reason the idea that he was an anti-Semetic Nazi sympathizer is fairly well established by his own words and deeds. Although that’s probably why you like him. I’m only putting this here so people can read the truth for themselves so just know I won’t respond to whatever rhetoric dog whistle filled rebuttal you can come up with.
This dude’s reply to an Auschwitz piece.
yikes
You are slowly going insane
We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies and dilution by foreign races-Charles Lindbergh
Dude, he was a KNOWN Nazi sympathizer. Give it up.
Dude!!! So was FDR and the NYT and pretty much the majority of America!! Go do some research!! My parents were Holocaust survivors!!! FDR did nothing to bring the Jews in!! Words mean nothing!! It’s actions! FDR did dick to save the Jews!! He wouldn’t let them in.
Read this and then take several seats.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a31482451/charles-lindbergh-nazi-ties-explained-the-plot-against-america-true-story/
Let me guess, you did a one second google search and didn’t even read that article? Apart from Lindbergh being asked by the United States government to go on a diplomatic mission to Germany your article, titled “Charles Lindbergh’s Real Nazi Ties Are At the Heart of David Simon’s The Plot Against America”, lists precisely zero ties to “Real Nazis”. It also misrepresents Lindbergh etc doing what was, at the time, the customary pledge of allegiance salute as a “Nazi salute”. Magnificent work, keep it up.
White-washing a hero, eh?The only color allowable.If you’d also noted ANY of his many demerits, I’d have let your comment pass, but the one you wrote deserves both a response and a FUCK OFF.He WAS an extreme racist, especially against Jews and Asians. His anti-Communism was linked totally to his racism. He carefully made sure he fought in the Pacific Theater, certainly.He also was a bigamist hypocrite.***From the (very even-handed!) Jewish Press: “The bottom line is that the totality of the record – including Lindbergh’s own writings – belie any claim that he wasn’t anti-Semitic. Even his wife was quoted as saying that she later experienced a feeling of profound grief over what her husband had said.Lindbergh claimed publicly and repeatedly that Jews controlled “our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government” and that they were trying, through their ownership and control of the media, to draw America into WWII. In an infamous September 11, 1941 rally in Des Moines organized by the America First Committee, he alleged that three entities were acting contrary to American interests by dragging the country to war: FDR, the British, and the Jews.He said that “leaders of the Jewish race are not American in interests and viewpoints.” He referred to American Jews as “other people,” and, in his diaries, he wrote: “We must limit to a reasonable amount the Jewish influence…. Whenever the Jewish percentage of total population becomes too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur. It is too bad because a few Jews of the right type are, I believe, an asset to any country” (emphasis added).”Also, let’s remind folks here about OTHER influences that link him to favoring the Germans (and therefore seeing the Nazis are simply too “extreme” in their racism)
From Wikipedia: “Although Lindbergh considered Hitler a fanatic and avowed a belief in American democracy, he clearly stated elsewhere that he believed the survival of the white race was more important than the survival of democracy in Europe: “Our bond with Europe is one of race and not of political ideology,” he declared. Critics have noticed an apparent influence of German philosopher Oswald Spengler on Lindbergh. Spengler was a conservative authoritarian and during the interwar era, was widely read throughout the Western World, though by this point he had fallen out of favor with the Nazis because he had not wholly subscribed to their theories of racial purity.Lindbergh developed a long-term friendship with the automobile pioneer Henry Ford, who was well known for his anti-Semitic newspaper The Dearborn Independent. In a famous comment about Lindbergh to Detroit’s former FBI field office special agent in charge in July 1940, Ford said: “When Charles comes out here, we only talk about the Jews.”
Lindbergh considered Russia a “semi-Asiatic” country compared to Germany, and he believed Communism was an ideology that would destroy the West’s “racial strength” and replace everyone of European descent with “a pressing sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown”. He stated that if he had to choose, he would rather see America allied with Nazi Germany than Soviet Russia. He preferred Nordics, but he believed, after Soviet Communism was defeated, Russia would be a valuable ally against potential aggression from East Asia. Double life and secret German children.Beginning in 1957, Lindbergh had engaged in lengthy sexual relationships with three women while he remained married to Anne Morrow. He fathered three children with hatmaker Brigitte Hesshaimer (1926–2001), who had lived in the small Bavarian town of Geretsried. He had two children with her sister Mariette, a painter, living in Grimisuat. Lindbergh also had a son and daughter (born in 1959 and 1961) with Valeska, an East Prussian aristocrat who was his private secretary in Europe and lived in Baden-Baden.[203][204][205][206] All seven children were born between 1958 and 1967.[207]Ten days before he died, Lindbergh wrote to each of his European mistresses, imploring them to maintain the utmost secrecy about his illicit activities with them even after his death. The three women (none of whom ever married) all managed to keep their affairs secret even from their children, who during his lifetime (and for almost a decade after his death) did not know the true identity of their father, whom they had only known by the alias Careu Kent and they had seen him only when he briefly visited them once or twice a year. However, after reading a magazine article about Lindbergh in the mid-1980s, Brigitte’s daughter Astrid deduced the truth; she later discovered snapshots and more than 150 love letters from Lindbergh to her mother. After Brigitte and Anne Lindbergh had both died, she made her findings public; in 2003 DNA tests confirmed that Lindbergh had fathered Astrid and her two siblings.[207][209] Reeve Lindbergh, Lindbergh’s youngest child with Anne, wrote in her personal journal in 2003, “This story reflects absolutely Byzantine layers of deception on the part of our shared father. These children did not even know who he was! He used a pseudonym with them (To protect them, perhaps? To protect himself, absolutely!)“
Oh Christ, this is why we can’t have nice things.
I have to give props to HBO for its stunning set design and cinematography; I haven’t seen a series with such a firm sense of time and place in quite awhile. I also have been trying to find the name of the last song playing over the final credits, it sounds Gershwinesque but I haven’t had any luck…
It is Gershwin, his Prelude 2 for Piano, a concert hall piece. I’ve only ever heard it solo for piano. I love it a lot.
Thanks!
I’d say there’s absolutely no question or ambiguity that Simon and Burns adapted the book due to Donald Trump. Even Philip Roth has said that Trump being president is far more inexplicable than anything he could ever possibly imagine.
He could have a Nazi sympathiser called ‘Drumpf’ in the show to really drive it home.
Totally. Though the subject of its ridicule isn’t exactly subtle, either.
I’m really intrigued by Bengelsdorf as a character. Herman constantly rants about him being “bought” by Lindbergh, but is Bengelsdorf’s loyalty purchased, or real? My read of the character is that he’s genuinely a supporter of Lindbergh, and that Herman’s refusal to admit that Bengelsdorf’s loyalty is real is yet another bit of evidence for his own blindness about Lindbergh’s appeal.I’m really enjoying the series, and excited to see where it goes.
He reminds me of Judah Benjamin, the Jewish treasurer of the Confederacy. Or the members of the Judenrat or Jewish Ghetto Police. Folks that would sell out their own people or engage in the very oppression that we faced just for some of the goyim’s scraps. They’re the worst kinds of self-hating Jews.
i had the benefit of working in a call center for political stuff when i was a broke ass college kid and i saw how fucking weird and unreliable those polls are so i think that informed a lot of my cynicism about 2016. also the fact that there had been a kind of steady pendulum for a few cycles now, people were lukewarm about hillary and what obama had accomplished and lots of registered blue voters had left their red state college towns for blue urban centers. when bernie lost i felt like we were sort of put on tracks from that point on. of course i didn’t want to believe it.
I find this series an absolute joke!!! Being a daughter of a Holocaust survivor, it really is insulting. My dad survived Auschwitz and Dachau. Yeah, Lindy could hv said some bad things about Jews at the tine. Guess what?? So did the majority of America at the tine, including the NYT!! Owned by Jews!! Who, in fact covered up stories of what was happening to the Jews in Europe!! And dear old FDR was an anti Semite!! God forbid Mr. Simon and Mr. Burns would do their homework!! I’m sick of these liberals who think they can shove their ideology down our throats bc they think they know it all. FDR could hv let the European Jews in back then. Guess what?? He didn’t!!! And don’t any of you compare the European Jews from WW2 to the illegals coming into our Southern border! My parents came here legally after the war with NOTHING! They had to start all over again!! Got it!! They didn’t take a dime from the government. Learned English!! No free medical. No free anything. And?? They appreciated living in this country, even with its faults. Why? Bc they had their freedom!! And Phillip Roth is a despicable man. Beat the hell out of his wife Claire Bloom. Hates women. And how obvious that he and the writers of this mess of a series are trying to compare this to what is happening now with Trump. When I saw the young men in brown shirts standing behind John Tuturro? Holding the American flags? That was ridiculous. Give it a break already. Trump won. Grow up and stop producing nonsense like this.
An interesting [I think] bit of additional alternate history in the background of this one. The famous “St Paul’s Survives!” image does not happen in this universe, as the news reports that St Paul’s has been destroyed in an air raid by a bomb detonating under the High Altar. In reality, there was a bomb that landed there and would have destroyed a large portion of the church. Thankfully the bomb was poorly time-delayed and the British were able to successfully defuse it.