Watch a trailer for HBO and David Simon's take on Philip Roth's The Plot Against America
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Hot off the heels of The Deuce’s final season comes the first teaser for David Simon’s next HBO series, The Plot Against America, a six-episode adaptation of Philip Roth’s fiery 2004 novel. Set in an alternate universe where Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator and non-interventionist many suspected of being a Nazi sympathizer, defeated Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential race, it explores how country’s slow drift towards fascism dovetails with a swift rise in antisemitism.
John Turturro stars as Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, who remains a key ally of Lindbergh’s despite the candidate’s history of anti-semitic sentiment. Winona Ryder and Zoe Kazan, meanwhile, play sisters being pulled to different sides of the political divide. Homeland’s Morgan Spector helps round out the cast, as do Simon veterans David Krumholtz and Michael Kostroff.
It’s easy to see the timeliness of the material, but Simon recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how Roth urged him not to “confuse Trump for Lindbergh.” As Simon explained, “[Lindbergh] was an astounding hero and an astonishing American icon after the flight… He had the power that Trump as a reality show host and failed casino owner did not have. And yet Trump was able to market what he did have. He wanted me to be wary of making him Trumpist.”
He did, however, add that Lindbergh and Trump were similar in some ways. “They’re the same in terms of the demagogic underpinnings of their power, what they promise in the most simplistic terms possible, and how susceptible people are to those kinds of promises…and also in the demonization of the other,” he said. “Imagine if Trump were not as flawed a creature as he is. Imagine the damage that could be done if this guy had the charisma and capacity of even a Lindbergh. It’s scary.”
The Plot Against America, which Simon is helming alongside The Wire alum Ed Burns, premieres on HBO on March 16.
50 Comments
‘many suspected of being a Nazi sympathizer’
he had a secret family in nazi germany. i think you can remove the ‘many suspected of being’ part and be safe
The secret German family actually came after WW2. Not defending the awful racist and suspected Nazi here, just the writer of this article.
He had two secret families. He was banging sisters.
Didn’t he have a 3rd mistress at some point? I remember seeing somewhere he had kids with 4 women. Dude was definitely virile.
Yeah. There’s a third about whom not a lot is known. The other two hogged all the glory.
You mean hogged all the sperm. Of course his actual wife had 6 kids with him so she got her more than fair share of Lindbergh jizz.
And had an affair of her own.
But no kids to basically ignore until she wished to visit, like Charles did.
While I’m still not big on more alternate history “what if the bad people won” takes, this is certainly in more capable hands than that Confederate crap D&D were hoping to pull off.
Agree. I’d put Fatherland by Robert Harris in the same category.
But it is wild to think how such little things can change the course of history. Many of the comments in the recent Midway review point out how absurdly lucky we got in the Pacific, finding the Japanese carrier right as they were in the process of fueling all their planes for another attack.
People forget that Midway was actually counter ambush. Code breakers had intercepted the message that Midway was going to be a trap and the smaller US carrier force was able to catch them off guard. That said, there was an incredible amount luck in timing, scouting, the Japanese leaving out one of their healthy carriers and the odds of a first wave attack being so successful (US torpedoes were crap at the time). It was miraculous all things considered, even with the best laid plans.
A “what if the bad people won” story can still be good provided there’s some point other than rehashing how bad the bad people were. Good examples are Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle, Ward Moore’s Bring the Jubilee, and of course Roth’s The Plot Against America. The first is about the chaotic randomness of history, the second is about overcoming the narrow-mindedness of your own upbringing, and the third is about people doing untold harm to themselves because they can’t see beyond short-term glories. In all of them, the underlying theme is more important than the time shenanigans. Only Moore’s book troubles itself with the mechanics — incidentally it’s one of the few time travel stories where the mechanics lead logically to a moving conclusion.
Compared to Harry Turtledove’s “aliens crash the civil war” timelines, this is practically Chaucer.
Lol you’re absolutely correct but the first few were fun timewasters 👍
I’d argue it’s not specifically anti-semitism, but baseline racism and xenophobia.Hitler ‘exterminated’ many without any connection to Jewish faith, culture or ancestry. They were a marginalized group and easy to demonize – same as the homosexual population, the Roma, pretty much anyone he decided to eradicate. It does not in any way denigrate the horrors of the Holocaust nor refute that the overwhelming majority of those murdered were Jewish to know it wasn’t exclusively targeting the Jewish populations.That being said, unless they’re willing to push into that being the focus of the show, I can see it being hard to get across without derailing the rest of the plot. I’m just referring to the actuality that happened, not the reductive alternate history of the show.
I’m looking forward to this.That said, Roth’s book still doesn’t quite get Lindbergh right, and it feels like this probably goes further down that path (as you’d expect for TV, which has to simplify.) Scott Berg’s Lindbergh is basically the one source material that examines the massive layers of complexity this guy had, with Berg’s classic reaction to the startling news in 2003 that Lindbergh had maintained two secret families in Germany – “I’ve long been of a mind that anything is possible with Charles Lindbergh” – as good as a description of the enigma that he was as any.There’s little doubt Lindbergh was antisemitic, but he was also someone who went through an awful lot of trouble to get to the South Pacific, train pilots (which he apparently did quite well), and fly 50+ combat missions as a civilian despite the civilian leadership at the War Department fully shunning him.I don’t know how you effectively project someone that complicated into a 1941 administration run by him. Perhaps the trailer’s hint that Lindbergh allows the strains of hatred to rise throughout the United States is the right approach, since on many levels it’s an accurate reflection of where much of the country besides Lindbergh was at the time too.We’ll see.
I was just coming here to ask, didn’t Lindbergh fight tooth and nail to find a way to support the war effort once the U.S. got into it? I believe he was too old to enlist, plus something of a national hero for the whole aviation thing.But maybe that’s why he was involved more in the Pacific theater — not fighting Germans directly and racists do love to hate on Asians.
Like pretty much everything else surrounding him, it’s complicated.IIRC, convincing the aircraft manufacturer to send him to the South Pacific posting was largely because the civilian leadership had declared him persona non grata and there were simply too many eyes on the Europe and North African theaters to have him spend any time there. The Pacific offered both a sympathetic Supreme Commander in MacArthur for protection (who shared many of his views, along with always being happy to stick a thumb in FDR’s eye) along with the widespread dispersal of pilots there, which meant he could hop from island to island, train (which wasn’t just a PR tour – he came up with a few genuine innovations), and quietly fly missions as a ‘civilian’ pilot without any journalists being aware of it to alert the War Department, which would have put a kibosh on it as soon as it hit the news.Did he actually prefer to fight the Japanese over Germans? Hard to tell, but as Berg puts it, anything’s possible.
Any non-fiction recommendations for further reading?
Well, obviously Berg, and it’s a long enough book that it may very well take you between today and when the series comes out to finish.As far as other stuff, Those Angry Days by Lynne Olson does provide a pretty interesting overview of the time between the outbreak of World War II and the United States entering it, with a focus on Lindbergh heading the opposition. That said, she tries to create a scenario around FDR that is basically fictional – that American public opinion had moved to being very much in favor of entering the war long before Pearl Harbor, when pretty much every other scholarly source indicates it was the exact opposite – and so large parts of the book have to be taken with a massive grain of salt.It actually wouldn’t surprise me if the series uses the latter book as source material, since she really goes after both figures.
Did he actually prefer to fight the Japanese over Germans? Hard to tell, but as Berg puts it, anything’s possible. He did supposedly visit and see the concentration camps and Europe after the war and supposedly changed his tune with the typical, canned, “If I had known they were that bad, I wouldn’t have supported them” but its not 100% confirmed he sincerely believed that.
He didn’t; he was Nazi trash and so is this goose-stepper defending him in the comments.
Nazi apologism… not a good look for you, dude
I don’t think it’s that complicated. He was friendly with Nazi Germany and clearly sympathetic pre-war. A good analogous example might be Henry Ford, who was rabidly antisemitic, openly sympathetic of Germany, complimentary of Hitler, and had active plans to build German factories.As soon as Pearl Harbor happened, that all went out the window and Ford fell in line with American war production. That didn’t change the man, though, only the public image of patriotism.That’s how I think of Lindbergh. But as I said in another comment, the book isn’t really about Lindbergh as much as it is about the power of hate and pervasive chaos to sweep over a supposedly free and tolerant people. What makes the story unique is that aspect of alternate-history telling, combined with the perspective of an autobiographical “This Boys Life” story from a Jewish perspective facing hate in America. I really enjoyed the book for those reasons. The show might be a bit more on-the-nose and might focus more on characters who were more symbolic or thematic in the book. I don’t know if that will make the story better or not, but it’s pretty obvious it’s meant to respond more to contemporary politics than the book was, which came out in 2004 and had fewer direct political connections to draw. It’s still a really powerful story about the spread of hate and fear, though, and while I found the ending to be a bit anticlimactic, the story itself and the perspective of storytelling captured the fear, naivety, and confusion of childhood really well. I hope that isn’t lost in the translation to screen.
Lindbergh was majorly into the Yellow Peril and had early on been hoping the U.S would do more to oppose Japan. However, he first wanted to fight in Europe and wasn’t permitted to. During his wartime activities he was actually shocked at how his comrades treated the Japanese, even writing that the U.S was doing to them what Germany was doing to the Jews.
Yeah, he wasn’t too fond of Asians, as the following shows:“Aviation seems almost a gift from heaven to those Western nations who were already the leaders of their era, strengthening their leadership, their confidence, their dominance over other peoples. It is a tool specially shaped for Western hands, a scientific art which others only copy in a mediocre fashion; another barrier between the teeming millions of Asia and the Grecian inheritance of Europe — one of those priceless possessions which permit the White race to live at all in a pressing sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown.”
He tried to enlist but FDR blocked it for obvious reasons, so he backdoored his way in by acting as a civilian technical consultant for United Aircraft and was allowed to fly on combat and recon missions in Asia by sympathetic officers in the Army and Marine who kept it all incognito knowing how they’d all get in serious trouble if FDR found out. A lot of pilots were afraid to go with him on missions for that reason, even though when it got leaked to the public anyway that he was secretly and illegally flying combat missions, no one really cared.He did supposedly visit and see the concentration camps and Europe after the war and supposedly changed his tune, but its not 100% confirmed. He jumped on the anti-commie bandwagon after the war and for that reason, he got rehabilitated by Ike and the government who offered him a job as a NCO. The rest of the public didn’t remember or give a shit about him anymore by then.
ford was a massive antisemite and friend of Nazi germany including factory manufacturing. War changed that but not the man.
How about you don’t defend the anti-Semite… you could just not do that…
Having read the book and loved it (and re-read it) I can tell you it’s not so much about Lindbergh as it is about the pervasive spread of hate combined with the fictional autobiography style of a young American boy.
listened to this as an audio book – it was pretty good.
I gave this book to my conservative brother shortly after Trump announced his candidacy. I thought the parallels were too obvious to miss. He said he really enjoyed the book, but beyond that we never talked about it, so I’ve always wondered if he made the same links I did.
Anyway, pretty sure he voted for Trump.
You should blog your brother’s reviews of books. Heart of Darkness: “Great read! Africa sure is a shithole!”The Postman Always Rings Twice: “What a story! Who would have thought he’d get away with murder!”Animal Farm: “Talking animals! Not my thing but great book for children! Conveys important moral that rebelling against bosses only makes things worse!”
1984 – “I’m glad Winston came around in the end.”
David Simon’s great, but this hits too close to home. I can’t even watch political comedy anymore because it makes me sick to my stomach. RIP our democracy.
I’m with you. during the Bush years I could roll my eyes and laugh, but I can’t any more.
I was profoundly disappointed in this book, but anything David Simon does gets a chance from me.I could have used a bit more alt-history and a bit less “Roth does growing up Jewish in New Jersey again,” and I thought the ending (SPOILERS) undermined the whole “It can too happen here” message.But, like I said, David Simon. I’m in.
I didn’t think Roth was trying to write an “it could happen here!” novel, although that could be part it. What I took from it was Roth’s awareness of how self-destructive people could be for frankly cringeworthy rewards. The novel hinges on Roth’s aunt, who courts attention from high-profile fascists despite what that means for her family.
There was that, yeah, but in the way it used the historical figures in it, it seemed like the novel was at least in part about how much anti-semitism there really was in the US at that time, and I felt like part of the point of that was puncturing this belief we have in our innate goodness or the strength of our democratic character or what have you — that we always had the potential to turn just as horrible as Nazi Germany.Then, when everything is at its darkest, the innate goodness of the American people kicks in and everything is fine again.
I see the pro-Lindbergh rabbi has a southern accent, which reminds me of my bugaboo about the premise. There’s no way Lindbergh would have won the south in that election. It was the most solidly Democratic and pro-intervention part of the country. Lindbergh could complain about the “British race” advocating for U.S intervention on their behalf, but southern voters were overwhelmingly of that race. Lindbergh was descended from Scandinavian immigrants, with a father who was a senator that opposed the first world war and wrote a book denouncing it. His support was concentrated in the upper midwest, not the south.
We also see a klansman popping up, so it’s worth noting that the second Klan had collapsed in scandal during the twenties. At that time they were associated with prohibition, anti-Catholicism and mandatory public schooling. This put them at odds with the Irish, Italian and German immigrants who would later be relatively averse to the U.S supporting the U.K against Germany and Italy. It was FDR who put former klansman Hugo Black on the Supreme Court, though it was somewhat controversial at the time. Lindbergh denounced segregation in the south in one of his more notorious speeches, along with British imperial domination of Indians, which he could afford to do because that wasn’t his base of support. The Soviet Union would also use that sort of critique often enough that it became something of a joke.
We now know that British intelligence did heavily intervene in this election which Lindbergh was depicted as winning. Part of that was ensuring that Wendell Wilkie, a former Democrat who like Trump had never done any sort of public service, was nominated. Other parts however involved defeating politicians who opposed intervention, and those tended to be northerners.https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/when-a-foreign-government-interfered-in-a-us-electionto-reelect-fdr-214634
Given that this is revisionist historical fiction, you could see the Klan reemerging under the conditions of the novel. Maybe not in any major way, but certainly enough to scare people.
Let’s say the Klan does re-emerge. What is their agenda? Is it similar to the second Klan, though prohibition is dead and immigration is already restricted? Or is it more like the post-war klans, even though nothing is happening with regard to civil rights? I suppose Lindbergh could be agitating in favor of civil rights and the klan reacting against him, but I really doubt that’s the case in this show.
I doubt there would be much of an agenda other than being emboldened by Lindbergh’s anti-Semitism to mess with American Jews.
Merely messing with people is something teenage hooligans can get into without the uniforms or imitation of a fraternal order. The iterations of the klan have been vastly different, particularly comparing the second, which was the most popular as well as recent in this time period, to others.https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/09/the-ku-klux-kla.html
This just makes me mourn the Coen brothers version of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union that never was.
holy shit that would have been amazing! is this a real failed project or just wishful thinking?
They optioned the rights to the book many years back but it got caught up in all kinds of bureaucracy, then the option ran out
They should have adapted “It Can’t Happen Here” instead. I know the “V” mini-series started there, and 80’s TV execs wimped out and made Nazis into space lizards, but we can handle it now.
They couldn’t find a Jew to play the rabbi?!?I’m kidding. Totally kidding. Jon Turturro’s a great actor.
The parallels between a pro nazi president and Trump, whose daughter and grand kids are Jewish, most senior aides are Jewish and is the most pro-Israel president ever are obvious. How could someone miss them?