The Plot Against America

Kontrafaktisk historieskrivning med politisk udd

Abstract

The Plot Against America: Counter-factual Historiography with a Political Edge

The Plot Against America is a 2020 American tv-series, created by David Simon and Ed Burns. It consists of six, one-hour long episodes and was produced by Home Box Office. The series is an adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2004 novel. It is built on a counterfactual and para-fictional historical narrative, depicting the years 1940-42. Here, the hero pilot Charles Lindbergh becomes American president in 1940 and implements an anti-semitic, Fascist and isolationist agenda. Lindbergh’s policy is to keep the USA out of the ongoing war in Europe and Asia by upkeeping friendly relations with Nazi Germany. This political and social process is shown through the point of view of a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey. The article also emphasizes the series’ function as allegory, how it relates to the events connected with the presidency of Donald Trump. The general idea is that historical fiction is more relevant to the period of its production than to the actual period depicted.