The Plot Against America: A series right for our times

It may be set in the 1940s but this rich series from the creators of The Wire is absolutely right on the money for our present time.

Charles Lindbergh was a legendary figure. The aviation hero who suffered a personal tragedy was well known in his time, and now.

While the kidnapping and death of his baby famously inspired Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Lindbergh also inspired a different view of him in Philip Roth’s fiction.

The Lindbergh in Roth’s pages, in The Plot Against America, now a six-part miniseries starting on Foxtel today, is a man who vehemently espoused non-intervention and isolationism as Hitler marched across Europe and sent Jewish people to their deaths.

The real-life Lindbergh argued in a 1940 radio address that the British and the Jewish people were trying to pull the US into a world war, and, separately, in 1939 said those of European blood had to guard against “dilution by foreign races”. He has been accused of being a Nazi sympathiser.

The Plot Against America is a fictionalised, alternate version of history, one in which the Republicans successfully recruit Lindbergh as a presidential candidate who then defeats Franklin Roosevelt at the ballot.

The Plot Against America is series made for our times (Michele K. Short/HBO via AP)

As president, Lindbergh steers the US towards an inward-looking, xenophobic and fascistic nation. The parallels between Lindbergh, described by one character as a “pilot with opinions”, and current President Donald Trump are glaring.

The Plot Against America is very much a miniseries created for our times – every scene is loaded, urgent and terrifying. It’s both a mirror and an oracle of what’s to come.

Adapted by The Wire creators David Simon and Ed Burns, The Plot Against America is an expensive series with high production values, starring Winona Ryder, Zoe Kazan, John Turturro and Morgan Spector.

It’s a rich, well-observed show that benefits from the detail and care in Roth’s book, but also from Simon and Burns who can craft incredibly compelling and smart TV shows if you give them the money to do it – and HBO, who made this series, usually does.

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Zoe Kazan is best known for her work on The Big Sick and Ruby Sparks

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The series is centred on the Levins (renamed from Roth in the book), a Jewish family in a primarily Jewish neighbourhood in New Jersey.

Father Herman (Specter) is given a big promotion, but it would require the family to move closer to New York City. After house hunting in a tree-lined suburban neighbourhood with identical homes, they drive past a German beer garden on the way home.

The beer garden is filled with German patriots whose clinging glasses and lederhosen have a sinister air in the context of World War II. The Levins are chilled, especially after mum Bess (Kazan) recounts the isolation and discrimination she experienced growing up as the only Jewish child in her school.

It won’t be their only unsettling experience as the mood of their home changes, and people are emboldened to express their bigotry.

The series was adapted by the creators of The Wire

Hearing Lindbergh’s speech (the real one) on the radio, Herman is incensed when the would-be politician labels Jewish Americans as “other”.

Take this bit of dialogue from Herman, in which he decries the Republicans trying to bring Lindbergh on board.

“It’s how it starts, everyone thinking they work with the guy, that they can bring him around, that he doesn’t mean what he says.”

That obviously also applies to Mr Trump – and have any of those naive optimists before the 2016 election been proven anything but wrong?

Lindbergh as a celebrity non-politician who bursts into the establishment, exploiting fear and prejudice would be a lesson for our times if we weren’t already living in it.

The Plot Against America is on Fox Showcase and Foxtel Now on Tuesdays at 8.30pm, starting March 17

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