The Plot Against America

So, I know I'm really late to the party on Philip Roth's, "The Plot Against America." Everyone already wrote tons about it last year. And I don't even really know what they said. Whether they liked it or didn't. Whether it was an intellectual exercise or a warning to modern Americans. None of this will stop me from writing my own thoughts on the book.

As most of you know, the book is an alternative history, postulating the election in 1940 of an isolationist, accomodationist Charles Lindbergh instead of good old FDR. Lindy strikes a deal with Hitler, and hell ensues for the nation's 4 million+ Jews. If nothing else, the book makes for compelling reading.

But it also reveals Roth's genius in two ways. First, he has taken one of my hobby horses and shown its plausibility: namely, that America is not guaranteed to always be free, prosperous, and tolerant (on a relative scale, I mean), but that such wonders require diligence to be sustained, and even if such diligence is maintained over generations, it is a certainty that the United States will someday cease to be what it is today. Our freedoms are only as good as our willingness to defend them.

Now, many of us on the left have been known, particularly recently, to decry the oppressive encroachment of government on our freedoms, of religion on public life, and of militarism on every aspect of administration policy. Likewise, I'm sure, many on the left fear some combination of lawlessness stemming from godlessness, or maybe just socialism. The extent to which any significant number of people feel genuinely worried about their freedoms is unclear, but loyalty to political ideology over freedom is no way to protect our rights (I'm looking at you, Republicans), nor is reliance on histrionics or complacency in the face of bullying (I'm looking at you, Democrats). And while I feel in my heart of hearts that we should not give a shit what teenagers think, because they know less than nothing, it's still discomfiting to read this.

I guess what I'm saying is that those who would ignore history in favor of crap television are doomed to repeat someone else's crap history. And it will happen someday.

The second part of Roth's revealed genius is the way in which he enables those of us in large minorities to think like those in small, truly threatened minorities. I'm a Democrat, and I'm therefore just a shade in the minority. This leads me to be irked by Bush's roughriding, but it also assuages my concern, because honestly, how bad can the GOP make things if they have to worry about pissing 49% of us off? What Roth allows us to do, however, is feel persecuted in America by reading about his Newark Jews in Lindbergh's America. Not only that, but by keeping open the possibility for most of the book that the concerned Jews are way overreacting while the complacent Jews are more in touch with reality, it makes us question our grasp, or our ability to have a grasp, on political reality. When I get annoyed by lefty protestors, am I being the accomodationist, letting fascism slowly pull its wool over my eyes? How well do I actually know what "regular" Americans know, and what they are prepared to allow to happen?

What Roth's book leaves you with most is a desire to be vigilant. He makes you want to be on the right side of history, to know when the thundercloud threatens to darken America, and to do something about it, before it's too late. Knowing what I know, and fearing what I fear, I don't feel so bad taking the time to add one more opinion on Roth to the aether.