Philip Roth was not thinking about Donald Trump when he wrote his novel "The Plot Against America" ​​(the conspiracy against America), but screenwriter David Simon linked the imagined descent to fascism and the sudden victory For the current American president in the series with the same title, and it starts airing on Monday.
David Simon, the writer of the famous "The Wire" series, received the blessing of American writer Philip Roth, who died in 2018, to convert this literary novel published in 2004 to a TV work.
And "The Plot Against America", which begins airing Monday on "HBO" in the United States, and the next day in France on "OCS City", takes advantage of the record of what is called "alternative history", a literary genre that provides an imagined version from history.
The series revolves in the United States in the year 1940 as Filip Roth portrayed in his narrator, David Simon respected many aspects of the story and was sincere in conveying facts and details.
Even if he was not a Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, as is the case in the series, the pilot Charles Lindbergh was at the time a favorable national figure and the facade of "America First Comiti", a powerful isolationist movement with up to 800,000 members.
The series even repeats the most famous political rhetoric of this national hero, the first transatlantic pilot alone, in which he condemned Nazi aggression but at the same time accused Jews of bringing the United States into war.
Just as the short series gradually turns history towards imagination, "The Plot Against America", which is composed of six episodes, shows the disintegration of society to the brutality.
David Simon, like Philip Roth, chose to solidify his story by depicting the everyday life of an ordinary Jewish family from Newark (New Jersey), the writer´s birthplace.
By selecting a limited number of characters, the series avoids dispersion, and provides the possibility to delve into details while avoiding abbreviations.
"Ruth´s book is the best when it comes to listing what the members of this American Jewish family do, when they face the rise of fascism in their country," David Simon said in an interview on public NPR radio.
He added that the matter is parallel to the current era, while the country is under the leadership of Donald Trump, "Where is your place in America which is turning into something that is not completely republican?"
"This is somewhat similar to what is happening in the United States," said this former Baltimore Sun journalist and serial writer, most notably "Treme" and "The Dios" produced by "HP", which is also produced for "The Wire".
In 2013, David Simon was contacted to prepare this series, but at the time he refused, saying, "I don´t think the country can go that way."
It seemed to him that the election of Barack Obama and the development of American society had forever destroyed the two satires of America, racism and sectarianism, but he was "wrong", he said.
He pointed out that "this narration expresses our political era in a big way," adding, "I am convinced that we are heading in a direction that leads us to" tyranny "if we do not realize our weakness and the fragility of democracy" in the country.
