Why is it Suddenly OK to be a Nazi?: Sociological analysis of ‘The Plot Against America’

Set at the precipice of the second world war starting just before the Battle of Britain and Roosevelts election to a third term as President of the United States, the Alternate History Mini-series produced by HBO ‘The Plot Against America’ examines the sociological factors that take place in order for fascism, the ideology and the culture, to take over a nation. It explores this idea through the setting of a Jewish Family in America, one that is described in all ways as ordinary, one of moderate means that spares itself the worst of the depression but is by no means lavishing in the wealth that was once apparent in the 1920s; gradually, and subtly, the series shows how the (very real, and honestly very scary) fascist-sympathiser Charles A. Lindbergh could have reasonably beaten President Roosevelt to that third term in office and could have prevented the Americans from entering World War Two, thus at least partially allowing for the Nazi domination of Europe and, unbeknownst but unsurprising to the protagonists of the story, the mass extinction of European Jewish people the amount of time that the Nazis were given to perpetrate their wicked deeds all across the continent. 

This piece, published a whole four years ago, could not more poignantly describe what I could only ever possibly describe as the clusterfuck of American politics as it stands today. I know that coming from me, a 17 year old, who you may very well and possibly very rightly think has little to no experience in politics in the real world, should have no say in this, or at least, no serious say, but I promise you, I have experienced far too much politics in my life time to not try and make my mark in the fleeting moment where I can. 

Politics, at least for me, began at nine years old. In fact, I can point to the exact day, and the exact time, when politics stopped being something that the grown-ups talked about in hushed tones, and became something that I wanted, needed, to be a part of, in whatever way I could. That day, that hour, was the day of the 2016 Presidential Election; whereas most people had heard about the election, including me, not only did I not expect Trump to win, but it was also my nightmare. Literally. The night of the election, as I went to bed at around nine pm (my bedtime, of course), I dreamt of what I saw on the TV that day, states being called for each presidential hopeful (my excitement when I learned that my state, Connecticut, voted handily for Hillary Clinton), and what could happen. I knew that the night wasn’t going well for my party of choice, the Democrats (the party that all of my family at that time supported, though my mom had an independent streak and had supported Romney in 2012, which I only learned a few months later), but I held hope. I believed in a message that had been relayed to me the entirety of my early childhood, hope, change, progress. The motifs of the moderately successful Obama era that still to this day guide my beliefs and how I chose to operate in the political world. But there was a fright, naturally, that the worst would happen. You can imagine my terror when I woke up and my nightmare came true. 

Similarly to this experience, the youngest child of the protagonists of The Plot Against America experiences a series of nightmares after the election of President Lindbergh, depicting the Nazis taking over his small part of the city of Newark, and attacking his family. What I'm trying to get at, with these stories, both real and fictional, is that politics isn’t just something that you can philosophize about and talk about all high and mighty, whilst the ‘others’ face the consequences of your ‘i’m just asking questions!’ theories; it can kill people, it can make people’s lives better, and most importantly of all, it can make your life better. But the question then naturally arises from this situation, how did we get here? How did our great country, a country founded on ideals that are fundamentally and diametrically opposed to those of Nazis and other Nazi-affiliated, get to the point of electing people so fundamentally opposed to them? 

The Answer is simple, right-wing elements, whether it be media juggernauts or other various think tanks and organizations dedicated to promoting near fascist (or sometimes just outright fascist) ideology, changed what it meant to be American. Project 2025, the Koch Brothers foundation ‘visionary’ approach for America is the best way to look at this. This proto-fascistic vision for America is borderline treasonous, and we should not let anyone treat it as anything else. This vision for America, this hate-filled, purely spiteful, and most saliently important to the point of this article, vengeful, vision for America. It espouses an ideology that is purely based on getting revenge on the vanguard of progress that swept America since the post-war period. The vision of America that FDR, and the New Deal democrats that proceed him, and even the Socialist and Labor-oriented workers’ movements that came before him (such as the movements that led to the political success of union man Eugene Debs as the Socialist Party of America’s perennial presidential candidate) will be tarred by this manifesto that proposes the dissolution of American values. 

Personally, what the hateful version of America that the Koch Brothers seem to favor means for me, is that I’m no longer welcome in America. Despite having a 4.1 grade point average, being, by all means, white, and having been born in New York City, and never living outside the US, and also by growing up in a rural part of Connecticut and Massachusetts; despite all of this, despite being undeniable, irrevocably and unabashedly American, I’m not American enough for this vision of America. Both of my parents were born outside of the United States, and despite being naturalized citizens for over twenty years (longer than I’ve been alive). It means that because my mom was born in Lima, and my dad in Carcassonne, that the New York City boy isn’t good enough of an American for the Trump campaign, and their many various far-right and fascist allies. 

In The Plot Against America, the issues are the same. Lindbergh and the cronies of the American right do the same thing, through the passage of getting American Jewish people to involuntarily move from the Cities that they lived, among their communities in a way in which they could, in unity, togetherness as a community, fight for their rights; take them from that, and involuntarily move them to rural parts of the country. Where they would be alone, scared, and toothless. The Homestead Act 42, as it’s called in the mini-series, is legally voluntary; a participant can stop the process, simply by losing their job. This demonstrates the beginning of Jewish people becoming second-class citizens, in a way that restricts their rights and freedoms in a fundamental way. As you should be aware, the right to eat often is intertwined with the right to pursue happiness. 

 That is unamerican. Patently and wholly. We, as Americans, were promised the rights, god-ordained, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I will be damned, if the Koch brothers are the ones that take that from me. And I’ll be damned if I let my country, the one where I grew up in, where all my memories are, where all my values came from , and where I hope that my children will grow up in, becomes up for the taking for Fascists and their sympathizers. 

So the next question that arises when following this logic, is how do we fight back?

The Answer is clear, we don’t let them win. We, with every ounce of our being, every muscle in our body, and every thought we can think (in my case, every word I can write and vote I can organize), we take back this country. We do not surrender the soul of our great, fundamentally and wholly great, nation to those who not only disrespect it but actively wish to destroy it. The founding fathers, if they could see what the opposition to President Biden and the incumbent administration has become, would be ashamed of it. Not only has hyper-partisanship taken over like a parasite, destroying the ties that kep us as a nation together; but the opposition has completely taken anti-democratic measures to attempt to suspend democracy. In reference to my feelings as not being ‘American enough’ and feeling as though the institutions of this country are built against me, even though I am seemingly as American as anyone else, I leave you with this quote from the series “No, they only think we only think we’re Americans. They think with one more push, one more shove, that we’ll break and run to Canada or let them dump us in Kentucky or wherever. But it’s not up for discussion, Bess. They can call us ‘others’. They’re the others. Lindbergh is the other.”. I hope that from this article, you understand that the fight is eternal. A soul is not something to be taken lightly or used in speeches to score political points. The soul of the country is up for grabs, and it never should have been. But now that we’re here, we have to fight. Because if we don't, can we even call ourselves Americans? Land of the free, and home of the brave? Can we seriously think that, if we capitulate, if we let this country fall now, that they won’t go for others? There is no running in this fight. In Hungary, in Sweden, in Germany, in France, in the United Kingdom, in Peru, in Argentina, in Australia, in Canada; wherever it may be, our cause is just and our fight the same. Do not let them masquerade in gentile suits and mask their fascistic ideas in flowery language and rhetoric. Do not tolerate fascists. The fact that I even have to say that, in this country, is quite frankly disheartening. But no antisemite, no racist, no xenophobe, and no transphobe or homophobe, should ever think that this country is a safe space for them.