Archive | November, 2025

Is There New Relevance to a 2004 Novel About a History That Never Was?

19 Nov

By Lanny Morgnanesi

In 2004, more than a decade before Donald Trump first became president, Philip Roth published a novel entitled, “The Plot Against America.” There was an effort to make it into a TV show, but it failed — initially. After Trump was elected in 2016, it was green lighted into a six-part series.

The novel has nothing to do with Trump and takes place during World War II. It’s an alternative history. But reading it now, it carries an eerie sense of familiarity and dread. It actually gave me chills. Frankly, with Trump in his second presidency, I’m surprised it hasn’t been reissued.

Charles Lindbergh

 In the novel, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt loses his 1940 re-election bid to Charles Lindbergh, the America hero who in 1927 flew solo from New York to Paris in his small plane, The Spirit of St. Louis. In the novel and in real life, Lindbergh was an American Firster who wanted to keep the U.S. out of war. In the book, if not in real life, Lindbergh is sympathetic to the rise of Adolf Hitler and exhibits anti-Semitic tendencies.

Columnist Walter Winchell

Once in office, he signs an official truce with Hitler to keep America out of the war. Then he begins a series of programs to marginalize American Jews, mainly moving them out of urban enclaves (the book is set in Newark, N.J.) and scattering them about the Christian Midwest, hoping they assimilate and discard their Jewishness. Out of fear, some leave for Canada. The main voice of opposition – almost the singular point of dissent — is columnist and radio commentator Walter Winchell, a Jew. Frightened Jews rally around him and listen to his Sunday night broadcasts with both fear and hope.

 Then, Winchell is fired from his job, runs for president, and is assassinated. Jews protest. This sets off a violent wave of anti-Jewish pogroms. Murder and mayhem come to the streets of Jewish neighborhoods while Lindbergh’s government remains silent. Antisemitism builds and spreads, bursting like a volcano. Then Lindbergh, while flying alone back from a speech (he does this frequently) disappears. He and his plane cannot be found.

Author Philip Roth

Hitler (who, we learn later and secretively, may have kidnapped him; we’re not sure) claims Lindbergh was killed by a Jewish conspiracy, and the anti-Jewish rioting further intensifies. Much intrigue and strange happenings follow. The vice president takes over and arrests the top Jewish leaders in America, including real life figures Henry Morgenthau Jr., Herbert Lehman, and Bernard Baruch. Also arrested is New York Mayor Fiorella La Guardia, seemingly the only non-Jew to condemn America’s turn toward fascism.  Ultimately, a level-headed Mrs. Lindbergh, acting like a widow who knows something we don’t know, calms down the nation and announced that the Jews did not kill her husband. With her help, FDR is reelected, stops the pogroms, enters the war against Germany and Japan, and (we guess) saves America.

Joachim von Ribbentrop

What makes this story contemporary is the immense popularity of a conservative president who takes the country in an entirely new direction. Everything he does, including the relocation of Jews, is framed in a positive, pro-American narrative and is readily accepted by nearly all Americans, including – at least at first – many Jews. Lindbergh has enlisted the help of the nation’s top rabbi to convince his people that all is well and right. The rabbi is given a top position in the government, is treated and feted like a celebrity, and attends state dinners and other functions, including one where the guest of honor is Hitler’s foreign secretary, the real life Joachim von Ribbentrop.

So many people, big and small, compromise themselves because they see a winner and want to be on his team, and they assume when the government goes after people, it does so for a good reason, and will never come after them.

Newark, N.J. in the 1940s

As intra-family squabbles take place today, in the book Jewish families fight among themselves about whether or not the government is good intended, whether America is stronger by staying out of the war, whether they should move to Canada or take part in the relocation program, and more. We see how people are not worried at first, then as the Lindbergh policies take hold and escalate, the worrying begins. But people still aren’t sure. It takes violence, murder, and assassination before they realize what’s taking place is wrong.

If you can, look in on the book, “The Plot Against America” or stream the TV series on HBO or Hulu. (Here is the trailer)  Perhaps you won’t see it as I see it … or maybe you will see it as an even darker specter of what is to come.

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A Memory of Vinyl Records

2 Nov

By Lanny Morgnanesi

Today’s young hipsters just love their vinyl records. In my day, we had music on cassettes, but we also loved vinyl. At a party, we’d stack them up on the turntable and just let them go. Meanwhile, everyone at the party would just let themselves go.

There was one particular party where an inebriated fellow, let’s call him Dave, snuck off to a dark room with a young woman he was not especially attracted to or even fond of.  And the vinyl played.

When the party ended in the early morning, the woman – nicknamed  “The Pillow” — was gone, but he remained in a stupor on the floor, barely able to raise his head.

“Have fun?” I asked Dave. His answer, in the form it took, was unexpected and seemed to introduce a new type of metric not usually associated with the activity in which he had been engaged.

“Three sides of a record,” he said with a slur. “The Pillow blew me for three sides of a record.”

Taken aback, I had to ask him to repeat that, as if I didn’t understand, and in fact, I didn’t.

“She blew me for three sides of a record,” he said.

Yes, that’s what I thought he said.

Partly owing to liquor and partly owing to a lack of enthusiasm, Dave did not reach his moment. During the encounter, he simply sat there on the carpet in the dark room while the vinyl played and The Pillow attended to him. But he obviously paid attention to the music. That’s what I found both intriguing and offsetting. His audio preoccupation during his time was, to my mind, not an effective way to optimize the experience. With a woman seeking to give you extreme pleasure, does one count? That might be the last thing I’d do.

 And it must be noted that the records David spoke of were not skimpy 45s. These were LPs – that’s short for long playing. LPs were and are 12-inches wide. Each side hold roughly 22 minutes of music. So, for Dave and The Pillow, their marathon session lasted in excess of an hour. If you were watching TV, that’s a full episode of Bonanza.

When LPs were the dominant form of music, record owners knew their recordings intimately. This was the ‘70s, and we called these precious pieces of vinyl “albums.” Each was a treasure to its owner, who knew every song and the order in which they appeared, knew when the A side or B side was playing, had studied the album cover art for hidden messages and symbols, had read the album notes and knew who was playing on each track. Considering all this, perhaps it was unnecessary for Dave to count each song or even pay much attention to the music. Instead, he could have just checked in occasionally, recognizing a song from one album, then focusing back on the performance in front of him, savoring it, enjoying it, then checking back on the music later, hearing another song and realizing the initial record had finished and a second one had started, and so on.

This seems much more realistic than counting individual tracks. But now, so many years later, I wished I had asked him how he did it, how he knew three sides of a record had played.

Then there’s the question of how it ended. I never asked this either. Did she tire and quit, or did he tell her to stop? Maybe the party just ended and so did they. A more vexing question is: Why in God’s name do I even think about this?

That may be the most disturbing aspect here. I’m oddly triggered when I see vinyl. I don’t reminisce about the mystical music. I dwell solely on the sides, three sides to be exact. For a certain activity, that’s a lot of sides. And it’s an everlasting memory for me. I can’t imagine what it is for Dave.

Ah, he’s probably forgotten.

And fortunately for me, all my music today is digital. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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