What if a president of the United States were anti-Semitic?

That’s part of the premise in “The Plot Against America,” a 2004 novel by Philip Roth that explores what would have happened if Franklin Roosevelt had lost the 1940 election.

Roth’s book is being turned into a six-part HBO series co-produced and co-written by David Simon and Ed Burns, HBO announced Thursday on its website. Simon and Burns previously collaborated on the HBO television series “The Wire.”

Reached for comment Friday, Simon said, “That book in this moment — it speaks for itself, honestly.”

The book details what happens when famed aviator — and Nazi sympathizer — Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt for the presidency, then forms alliances with Germany and Japan. As anti-Semitism rises in the country, Jewish-Americans are relocated to rural areas to “enrich their Americanness” and Jewish teens are sent to live with gentile families.

— Christina Tkacik