MICHELE^ K.^ S
HORT/H
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HEN PHILIP ROTH
published The Plot
Against America in
2004 — an alternate history
where pilot Charles Lind-
bergh is elected president
in 1940 on an anti-war and
barely veiled anti-Semitic
platform — George W. Bush
was nearing re-election and
NBC was debuting the second
season of The Apprentice, a
game show judged by car-
toonish New York real estate
mogul Donald Trump. With
the country at war in Iraq
and Afghanistan, this wasn’tgests Bengelsdorf is “ko-
shering Lindbergh” for the
non-Jews, so they’ll feel com-
fortable voting for a man they
know is a bigot.) Soon, Ben-
gelsdorf is parroting talking
points about who is and
isn’t a “real American,” and
how the Jews can be better
“absorbed” into the allegedly
more authentic rural vision
of the country. Meanwhile,
Lindbergh’s ascen dance gives
tacit approval to everyone
who shares his ugly views to
take violent action. “The hate
was there,” Herman realizes.
“It’s like dry leaves waiting on
a spark.”
The Lindbergh-Trump par-
allels feel more blatant than
some of the political points
Simon and Burns have made
in their careers (like how
The Wire’s third season was
an Iraq War allegory). But
Trump is a figure for whom
subtlety and nuance have
always seemed irrelevant.
The specific dynamics of the
Levins — Herman’s stubborn
belief in America’s better
nature, Evelyn’s hunger for
recognition, Bess’ fear for her
kids — and the lavish period
details provide some separa-
tion from our current mess.
The performances, too, are
strong, particularly Kazan’s as
the one member of the family
who clearly sees what’s hap-
pening at each stage of this
slow-motion nightmare.
Roth is also far from the
only author whose story of a
demagogue’s rise now seems
to be playing out on cable
news. In one scene taken
straight from the book, New
York Mayor Fiorello LaGuar-
dia quotes Sinclair Lewis’ It
Can’t Happen Here, then ad-
mits, “It is happening here.”
Because of those clear links
between Roth’s parallel past
and our very real present, The
Plot Against America can
be as difficult to watch
as the toughest mo-
ments of The Wire,
Treme, or The
Deuce. By the
end, Simon and
Burns make
their story even
darker than the
novel’s, but in
a way that feels
sadly true to
today.+++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +PoorALAN SEPINWALL
a happy time for the U.S., but
Roth’s story read more like
a path thankfully avoided
(the real Lindbergh was an
isolationist and anti-Semite,
but never ran for office) than
as an ominous prophecy.
With HBO’s six-part mini-
series adaptation from The
Wire creators Ed Burns and
David Simon, what was once
fanciful now feels agonizingly
prescient. Like Hulu’s The
Handmaid’s Tale (albeit more
compact), it’s chilling in the
ways that life has begun to
imitate its source material’s
art. But it’s yet another ex-
ample of how Simon and his
collaborators manage to craft
riveting entertainment out of
incisive commentary on the
way we live now.
We experience this wrinkle
in time through the eyes of
a fictionalized version of
Roth’s family (here renamed
the Levins) in Newark, New
Jersey, led by insurancesalesman Herman (Morgan
Spector) and housewife Bess
(Zoe Kazan). Older son Sandy
(Caleb Malis) is an artist who
idolizes Lindbergh (Ben
Cole), while young Philip
(Azhy Robertson) just wants
to enjoy his stamp collection
and dinners with his aunt
Evelyn (Winona Ryder) and
cousin Alvin (Anthony Boyle).
Lindbergh’s political rise
plays out much like Trump’s.
First, he’s satirized in ways
his critics believe will sink
him but that he proves
immune to. Herman
dismisses him as
“an airplane pilot
with opinions,”
in the same
way Trump’s
reality-show
fame was ini-
tially treated
as a disqual-
ifier. Then,
Lindbergh’s
viewed as a use-The Plot Against
America
NETWORK HBO
AIR DATE March 16th
STARRING Zoe Kazan
Morgan Spector
John Turturro
Winona Ryder
4ful idiot by his party. “This is
how it starts: everyone think-
ing they can work with the
guy,” laments Herman. “Like
Hitler: Everyone believes he
doesn’t mean what he says.”
With the help of Evelyn’s
rabbi boyfriend Lionel
Bengelsdorf ( John Turturro)
— a Southern-raised Jew who
serves as a religious adviser —
Lindy is able to win election.
(A disgusted Alvin sug-A DARK ‘PLOT’ MADE ALL TOO REAL
The creators of ‘The Wire’ tackle a Philip Roth tale of fear
and bigotry with frightening parallels to todayTV
Kazan as
matriarch
BessCole as
Lindbergh
(left), with
Turturro as
his adviser90