Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson is a journalist, political activist, and columnist whose significance in the novel lies in her early opposition to Nazism and her public criticism of Charles A. Lindbergh’s politics. Her expulsion from a German-American Bund rally turns dissent into a visible act: she answers propaganda with ridicule, then leaves still protesting. The biographical note also complicates any simple political label, recording her opposition to Zionism and her support for Palestinian Arabs in the 1940s and 1950s.

Identity and Public Work

A biographical notice describes Thompson as a journalist, activist, and columnist whose work was syndicated in 170 newspapers during the 1930s. She was married to the novelist Sinclair Lewis in 1928; the marriage ended in divorce in 1942. These details place her among the period’s widely published public commentators, rather than presenting her only as a figure in the rally episode.

Opposition to Nazism and Lindbergh

Thompson is identified as an early opponent of Nazism and Adolf Hitler and as a bitter critic of Lindbergh’s politics. The account of the 1939 German-American Bund rally at Madison Square Garden gives this opposition a particular form: she was expelled for exercising what she called her “constitutional right to laugh at ridiculous statements in a public hall.” As she left, she shouted, “Bunk, bunk, bunk! Mein Kampf, word for word!” Her response refused the rally’s claims the solemnity they sought; laughter and blunt accusation became public counter-speech.

The novel places this episode within a larger conflict over the Bund’s propaganda and the growing opposition to Lindbergh’s administration. Walter Winchell continued to call the Bundists “Bundits” and, in a later broadcast, invoked Thompson’s earlier protest as an example of her denunciation of their propaganda. Her brief appearance therefore links the 1939 rally to the subsequent public resistance without making her a participant in the later campaign events.

Later Political Positions and Narrative Role

The biographical note records that Thompson opposed Zionism and supported Palestinian Arabs in the 1940s and 1950s. This later political position sits alongside, rather than erasing, her early anti-Nazi activism and criticism of Lindbergh. The novel gives her little sustained personal narrative; instead, her appearance and the biographical notice mark a public record of dissent whose positions cannot be reduced to a single political allegiance.