HBO's The Plot Against America
- Thread starter Danthefan28
- Start date
On the German side ? It seems to me that barring an outside attack on the US by Germany or Japan that if the US went to war on the side of one of the WW2 beligerants-especially the Axis- a Second US Civil War becomes possible...
I was pretty disappointed by the ending personally (I just finished) - it seemed to be building to a tad blunt but powerful warning against fascism but instead of it taking the indulgence of fascism to its full political conclusion, all it does is tell us that the United States can just come back and restore itself back to OTL as if nothing happened. I felt like it was trying to keep its political allegory to modern day (if we win this election, it will be right again) but it didn't fuse well with the scale of the violence shown in the show. The military, police, and the KKK were out in force destroying Jewish businesses and murdering political opponents with something resembling approval of the Presidential administration that even descends into martial law, but after the speech of the First Lady it all disappears into smoke and we get a probable Roosevelt presidency.
It would have been a much stronger narrative and political allegory if it showed that cooperation with fascism leads to serious ramifications not just as long as one presidential term lasts, but much farther...
It would have been a much stronger narrative and political allegory if it showed that cooperation with fascism leads to serious ramifications not just as long as one presidential term lasts, but much farther...
Well, assassinating/kidnapping the US president pretty much is an outside attack. Hoover and Ford could probably conjure up any evidence that they couldn't already produce (and Lindbergh's 1940 election seemed to have a pretty big margin).
I don't think the Roosevelt reelection in 1942 is the probable outcome (far from it).
Someone (Ford or Hoover) has managed to reach into New Jersey and destroy ballots from Democratic leaning precincts (and judging from the past two years, a lot of the state and local NJ police have been suborned). As for conflicting results being reported on the radio, that could just indicate that Roosevelt favorable polls weren't being borne out in 1940 Lindbergh east coast counties.
Since Ford's running, he likely has the support of much, if not, most of American big business.
Hmm, I misinterpreted the ending then! I still felt a bit jarred from martial law and political arrests like Bengelsdorff and open racial violence and burning of cities to a fast forward to the Special Election being held after the First Lady's speech. I suppose they had to cram the plot of a book into a mini-series though so naturally some license had to be taken.
Well, I think what you described actually was the ending in Roth's novel.
David Simon felt that it* was too trite, though.
*FDR wins the 1942 special election, and lo and behold, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor in December 1942, and the US jumps into WWII. Bobby Kennedy even gets whacked, to complete the butterfly genocide.