NEVER AGAIN sounds the theme of an American dystopia, a United States that turns on its Jewish citizens, arrests them, takes away their rights, and creates red, white and blue detention camps. This is a popular theme in current American culture.
THE HANDMAID’S TALE, the Hulu television series based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, has been approved for a third season. It describes an America governed by religious zealots.
THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, released by Amazon Prime, is also moving into its third season. It is based on a 1962 novel by science fiction author Phillip K. Dick and takes place in a present day world in which Germany and Japan won the Second World War.
THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA joins this trend with a television series just purchased by HBO based on Philip Roth’s 2004 novel. Roth imagines an America in which aviator Charles Lindbergh defeats Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 election. Lindbergh, a Nazi sympathizer, keeps the United States neutral in the war.
IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE was written by Sinclair Lewis in the height of the Great Depression. It depicts a United States dominated by a nationalist tyrant. This classic but mostly forgotten novel was recently reissued and is now an Amazon Best Seller.
NEVER AGAIN fits into this fascination with how things might be had one or another trigger event launched the United States toward a totalitarian government.