— American dystopias on the rise in popular culture

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.