Life in Nazi America

Books like this scare me, because they force me to think about the question of what I might have done if I was unfortunate enough to live in Germany as it was being overrun with Nazi ideology, and face up to the answer that in all likelihood I would have done nothing except for quietly be relieved that I'm not Jewish or a gypsy or gay or anything else they decided they didn't like. It's a horrible potential to face, and must have been a horrific truth for the millions of Germans who let the horrors of fascism wash over them and did nothing.

The Plot Against America is Philip Roth's nightmarish vision of Nazism supplanted to the United States, and although at times it seems a little far-fetched and fanciful, if you run with the initial premise everything that comes after as the USA slowly degenerates into a Jewish-ostracising, Hitler-loving hole seems possible. First, Fascist sympathiser and celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh becomes president in 1940 on an anti-war platform [the idea that the US could ever be anti-war was for me the hardest thing to imagine!], and then he gradually brings in measures to side with Hitler and persecute the Jews of the country, planning to separate Jewish communities and move individual families to far flung Southern towns under the guise of integrating them with the wider community. The disintegration of freedom is shown as a delicate change masked by the government and shined up to look positive, and you lose yourself in a world in which Jews become hated in America in the same way as in Nazi Germany. Non-Jewish citizens quickly latch onto the fact that they are in a position of safety as long as they target the Jews, and the country becomes perilous for the minority. Roth throws up so much to ponder that it took me ages to get through the book, as I could only read a couple of pages before becoming lost in thought. I cannot imagine the fear in Jewish souls as their home countries in Europe were engulfed in the wave of Hitler's domination, and they lived on the edge of being sent to concentration camps. The Plot Against America is an amazing book, and though it requires some suspension of disbelief, it's frightening how little you need to be caught up in it.

Another thing that struck me about this book is how easy it seems to be to slander dead people and get away with it. Although Lindbergh is historically reported to have vague Fascist and anti-Semitic leanings, Roth gets away with turning his character into a Nazi pawn who at times seems close to ordering genocide, and nobody seems to have a problem with it! If Lindbergh was alive Roth would have lawsuits coming out of his ears, but apparently turning frantically in his grave counts for nothing. I found it strange that an author could get away with such blasphemy. And Henry Ford seems like a monster, too, although if you look him up on Wikipedia that one seems justified.