"An independent destiny for America": Roth's vision of American exceptionalism

Abstract

In The Plot Against America (2004), Philip Roth offers an alternative history in which Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator, defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940 election. Although some critics, and Roth himself, have previously argued against reading the Lindbergh administration in Plot as an allegory for contemporary politics, I recuperate this novel as a lens for contextualizing the 2016 election season and results. By drawing parallels between Roth’s President Lindbergh and President-elect Donald Trump, I demonstrate that Roth’s Lindbergh, like Trump, gains public support by invoking a malevolent version of group identity that tends to reemerge in the American political arena, in an imagined 1940s America and in 2016.