I’ll take this oppo to recap what ended up happening in “The Plot against America”
Walter Winchell gets fired from the radio and makes a very early run for the rat nomination in 1944. He draws bigs crowds and counter-protesters who are 100% at fault for stirring up riots wherever he goes. Eventually he gets his head blown off in Memphis or somewhere.
The pro-Lindy Rabbi (a Southern Jew who’s people have been in the country for a long time) has an idea to send Jews to places like rural Kentucky and Billings Montana (where they probably would have great trouble attending Temple so WTF?). It’s supposed to be voluntary but they get companies to move the jobs, the Jews can go or lose their jobs.
Waves of antisemitic violence for seemingly no reason (Jewish woman in Kentucky is burned alive in her car for no reason). Lindy does nothing, gives a one sentence speech about the good economy and flies off. His plane goes missing. In the show this presented as British intelligence assassinating him cause VP Wheeler can be beaten in 1944.
There’s a conspiracy theory though that Hitler was blackmailing him all along (Nazis kidnapped his son, before they ever came to power for some reason, awesome long term planning!) and he was nabbed by Germany so Wheeler could take over cause Lindy was doing the bare minimum of being pro-Nazi. Only pro-Lindy people voice this theory and are looked at like they are crazy.
Wheeler is Acting President, closes the border with Canada (where Jews are fleeing) and has Lindy’s wife put in an asylum and the pro-Lindy Rabbi arrested.
Mrs. L escapes and gives a pirate radio address denouncing Wheeler, antisemitism and calling for “Congress” to remove him and authorize a special election for President in 1942. No mention that an amendment would be needed. For some reason the political establishment is now shamed and a supposedly GOP Congress agrees to gives the democrats a chance to take back the White House early.
The GOP Ticket (based on election signs) is Henry Ford (Sec of the Interior, and I guess he was a real antisemite) and Taft. Rats are FDR and Truman. “Fraud” is depicted, people being told they suddenly aren’t registered and people walking off with ballot boxes, we are to presume it’s the GOP doing this. The a-hole producer put that in as commentary for GOP allegedly oppressing the Black voter today.
In the book, FDR wins and “history gets back on track”. In the show the ending is left up in the air, the radio says some Virginia Beach precincts that went big for Lindy are showing mixed results and then it ends.
The Lindbergh and especially Wheeler estates should sue.
That is just nuts. FDR running in a 1942 “special” ? The only reason he was still in office by that point was due to incumbency and the personal power he had amassed. What had he been doing prior to 1942 in this fictional piece ? Too many other Dems would’ve been contenders. How would Truman have even been Senator in a universe where Republicans were winning the Presidency at that time ? There would’ve been a Republican in Truman’s seat (and in such a fictional/fanciful universe, that Republican might’ve been my cousin, Henry Kiel).
Henry Ford was a Stalwart Democrat and ran for the Senate as one. These guys don’t have much of a grasp on history or any sort of reality.
BTW, the FDR/Truman pairing (2 years early) is dubious on its face. FDR had submitted two names to replace his pro-Soviet VP, and at the top of the list was Justice Wild Bill Douglas with Sen. Truman in second. Supposedly the person who received the “note” switched the names around and pushed Truman instead.