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Economist Podcasts

The Economist Asks: David Simon

Economist Podcasts

The Economist

News & Politics, News

4.44.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The writer of “The Wire” and “The Deuce” takes a break from the dark side of real life to explore an alternative history in which Franklin D Roosevelt lost the 1940 presidential election to an anti-Semitic isolationist—on a platform to lead America towards fascism. As the country prepares for a very different election, Anne McElvoy asks David Simon about the roots of anti-immigrant feeling in America and whether individuals can change the course of history. Plus, when does a storyteller need to learn to let go? And they swap lockdown binge-watching favourites from the streaming archives.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

News of the global climate crisis can leave us feeling helpless. Too much negativity can trigger our eco-anxiety,

0:08.0

leaving us paralyzed when we need to act.

0:11.0

This is why EONNEXT is in search of better news to power up for change.

0:16.0

Did you know last year renewable power saved 230 million tons of CO2 emissions?

0:22.0

That's the equivalent of taking more than 49 million petrol-powered cars off the road for a year.

0:28.0

If you're feeling impacted by eco-anxiety, EONNEXT have created a range of resources such as green noise soundscapes.

0:36.0

Just search power up for change in your podcasting app.

0:50.0

It's 1940 and Franklin D. Roosevelt has just lost the election.

0:55.0

The Jewish people that brought the machine to the United States into this new war.

1:00.0

It's calling this war edge, D. Roosevelt. Listen to that crap.

1:03.0

America's new president is Charles Lindbergh.

1:07.0

Fater does a hero for making the first solo transatlantic flight.

1:11.0

He's elected on a platform to keep his country out of a European war and lead it on another path towards fascism.

1:21.0

Of course, it didn't happen like this.

1:24.0

Lindbergh was a leader of the anti-Semitic and isolationist America First Committee,

1:29.0

but he never ran for president. Roosevelt comfortably won a third term.

1:34.0

But the plot against America is the story of how one election could have reshaped the politics of the US and much beyond it.

1:43.0

Now this historical fantasy by the late American novelist Philip Roth has been reimagined for television by my guest today,

1:50.0

the writer David Simon.

1:52.0

He's known for exploring the dark and secret sides of real life.

1:56.0

After more than a decade as a police reporter in Baltimore, he spent a year shadowing investigations of murder

2:02.0

to write homicide a year on the Killing Streets.

...

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