The Plot Against America

by Philip Roth

“Call me Don, why don’t you? And I’ll call you Phil. You know what a fascist is, don’t you, Phil?” “I think so.” “Did they call anybody a fascist that you remember?” “No.” “Don’t rush yourself. Don’t rush to answer. Take all the time you need. Try hard to remember. It’s important. Did they call anybody a fascist? Did they say anything about Hitler? You know who Hitler is.” “Everybody does.” “He’s a bad man, isn’t he?” “Yes,” I said. “He’s against the Jews, isn’t he?” “Yes.” “Who else is against the Jews?” “The Bund.” “Anyone else?” he asked. I knew enough not to mention Henry Ford, America First, the southern Democrats, or the isolationist Republicans, let alone Lindbergh. Over the past few years, the list I heard at home of prominent Americans who hated Jews was far longer than that, and then there were the ordinary Americans, tens of thousands of them, maybe millions of them, like the beer drinkers we didn’t want to live beside in Union and the owner of the hotel in Washington and the mustached diner who’d insulted us in the cafeteria near Union Station.