This chapter looks at the ways sf visions of the future published in the decades following World War II both challenge the dominant ideology of American exceptionalism – the notion that the United States is a single homogenous nation uniquely exempt from history – and the Program Era division between literary and genre fiction. Both Program Era realism and sf develop representations of the present. However, sf’s mirror is a distorting anamorphic one, presenting imaginary futures that help its readers cognize the contradictions, conflicts, and struggles that are always at work in any historical situation, and which naturalizing formulations such as American exceptionalism occlude. The chapter traces shifting practices of representing the future, beginning with 1950s dystopias, postapocalypses, and alternate histories through the radical visions of the New Wave and the new practices of postmodern cyberpunk and critical dystopia up to the recent wave of literary sf and climate change fiction.

Whether or not the USA has its own fascist tradition is not merely a political but also a cultural question. This chapter examines America’s fascist potential by exploring how it has been depicted in popular alternate history television shows, including The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019), The Plot Against America (2020), Hunters (2019–2023), and Watchmen (2019). Echoing older fears of domestic fascism in American history, the four shows reflect growing concerns about America’s political future in the Trump era, and arrive at a common set of conclusions: they insist that fascism poses a serious threat to the United States; they pessimistically depict Americans passively accepting, or actively collaborating with, fascist rule; they urgently advise the targets of fascism – Jews, African Americans, and other minorities – to combine forces in combating it; and they explore the vexing question of whether using violence against fascism is ethically permitted or is itself “fascist.” These alternate histories show how universalizing the fascist past can foster a sense of political solidarity among groups threatened by fascism in the present.