Roth wrote his novel during the Bush era, and was frank about his having been inspired by the run-up to the Iraq War. Little did he know how events would play our during the final years of his own life. Having read the book myself during the Obama years, you can see how affected I was by the lies propogated by the "birther" movement, who sought to delegitimize the President.
And here we are. They did not need to work very hard to create images for this television adaptation which put one in mind of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville three years ago, and city streets in Minneapolis, Portland, and Kenosha.
What I did not mention in my decade-old blog post was how disappointed I was with the conclusion of Roth's book. Lindburgh flies to Berlin, a special election is called, FDR wins, and history as we know it continues. It is all too pat, too sunny.
This adaptation has a superior ending, and one which leaves me chilled. We hear Sinatra's rendition of The House I Live In, a lovely call for American tolerance and acceptance, and see people of all walks of life coming together to vote for a President.
We also see men in black removing voting machines from precincts, claiming they are broken, and white men burning ballots in abandoned fields. The Plot Against America program debuted on March 16 of this year, as the country was shutting down for the pandemic, and before the President began his most recent agenda, casting doubt on our elections and dismantling the post office.
It is far too late to suggest that it can't happen here.
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