The Plot Against America

The Big Lie is a phrase coined by Adolph Hitler in his manifesto, Mein Kampf. It refers to a lie that is so big, and so audacious, that rather than scorn it, people believe it because they cannot conceive of anyone saying something so outrageous and incorrect. The Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would expand on the idea, and change it slightly for his own work. Goebbels essentially said that if a lie is told often enough, it can become the truth. Nazi propaganda relied on the repetition that the Jews were responsible for nearly every ill that had befallen European society.

Lindbergh adopts his own version of the Big Lie, but it appears to be innocuous. When responding to political attacks, he repeats that America is at peace, and that he has kept his promise to keep Americans out of the war. He says this even while his administration develops policies that marginalize Jews and separate them from their children, and while the pogrom in Detroit takes place. America—at least for Jews—is not at peace, but because the president calmly repeats it so often, he is believed.