Michael Winiarski: The bookseller on Broadway got it right

The news is dominated by Donald Trump throwing away the mask and openly siding with Putin in the Russian war of conquest against Ukraine:

"Russia has, frankly, been okay with Ukraine. They haven't done much," Trump said of the bloodiest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

It reminds me of another walk in New York, ten years ago, when Trump had just been elected president of the United States for the first time. On Broadway I met a scared man. He had set up a small table with books by the author Philip Roth.

The novel he sold, "The plot against America" ​​from 2004, is a fictional historiography about what could have happened if the United States had a fascist president during World War II.

The book's main character, aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, admires Adolf Hitler and is part of a party called America First. The party is against American involvement in World War II and propagandizes against the "Jewish race" who allegedly conspired to drag the United States into the war.

In Philip Roth's story, Lindbergh becomes the Republican presidential candidate in 1940 and wins the election with the slogan: "Vote for Lindbergh - or for war".

As president, Lindbergh makes a treaty with Hitler, promising not to interfere in Germany's expansion plans in Europe. At home, the new administration begins to "relocate" Jews to the West.

In retrospect, it's striking how apt Philip Roth's story is, if you just swap the names of the President of the United States and the wanted war criminal he admires.

The bookseller turned out to be justified in his fears. I would have liked to discuss the matter with him. But he's not staying on Broadway.

Michael Winiarski, DN's foreign affairs commentator, who is currently...

...reads: "American Scoundrel" by Kai Bird, an indispensable book for those who want to understand Donald Trump. The title refers to Roy Cohn, the ruthless super-fixer who was communist hunter Joe McCarthy's aide and later Trump's mentor.

…thinking about how Europe's support for Ukraine will fare in the coming year, when Spain, France, Italy and Poland have gone to the polls.