Make America scared again
Dear Mr. Trump; I love your show. I have to tell you up front, I’m a huge fan of the genre. I’ve read and watched them all, beginning with The Stand by Stephen King, published back in 1978. I consider it the first modern dystopia. In fact I think it was King, in that novel, who coined the expression The Walking Dead. How’s that for being ahead of the curve?
And it’s such a fantastic story. Randall Flagg, a.k.a. The Dark Man, set against Mother Abigail, and the few survivors of the great plague, drawn to one or the other according to their natures.
Of course Hillary Clinton is no Mother Abigail, and that’s exactly her problem, yes?
You, however — wow. The Chiclets-bright smile, the blazing heat in your face — all you need is a pair of run-down cowboy boots and you’re in character. Very nicely done, sir.
But there have been so many powerful stories like this over the past 15 years, haven’t there? The best is probably Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, published in 2006. His innovation was to just go headlong for eating the young, no flinching or turning away. It’s difficult to read in places, for sure. But what a metaphor for modern life!
Of course it isn’t really, because based on objective criteria Americans are healthier, wealthier, safer and longer-lived than almost all other people at any other time in human history.
But that’s what dramatic fiction does, yes? It lifts us beyond our circumstances and presents the catastrophically strange, thereby activating the fight-flight response. Case in point, your speech in Cleveland the other day. Wow. But I digress.
There are the hit TV shows, such as Jericho (2006-08), in which America is destroyed by nuclear weapons, launched by an evil cabal within the government; 24 (2001-10), in which hero Jack Bauer murders and tortures all enemies, foreign and domestic, to prevent nuclear and other endtime attacks that threaten him, his family and at least one major U.S. city every single day.
There are the post-apocalyptic feature films, so numerous they begin to run together.
And of course, there is AMC’s The Walking Dead, now between seasons. Consider Rick and his rugged band of survivors, battling the undead, ravenous hordes outside the gates. No one’s trying to take away their Second Amendment rights. Can there be any better avatars for you and the new party you put on display last week?
Because, let’s be honest: The end is nigh and we all can sense it. This is why we devour these stories. If it isn’t the undead it’ll be something else — Islamist terrorists, Syrian refugees, Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants. The Four Horsemen are abroad. We may as well skip the prologue and get right to it.
And this is why I so appreciate the work you did in Cleveland, Mr. Trump. Newt Gingrich, speaking so evocatively about terrorists bringing the nuclear fire to U.S. soil, making 9/11 look like a garden party; Rudy Giuliani, hero of 9/11, howling with desperation about the horrifying present day and conjuring such wistfulness about the lost past; your running mate Mike Pence, speaking with a jovial twinkle in his eye about how “rough” you can be on your opponents, as though you’ve delivered a few slightly offcolour wedding toasts, and who can blame anyone for that?
Best of all, of course, is you. Gosh, but that was a speech; every word of it infused with lethal purpose and heartfelt rage, even though each line had been scripted beforehand with a scalpel. This takes great talent, for which you have not received due credit.
But here’s the true genius of what you’ve accomplished, in my humble opinion. I have loved ones and many friends in America. On not a single of my very long drives up the interstate between Buffalo and Albany, N.Y., have I been accosted, attacked, killed or eaten, even partially, by dystopic savages.
Quite the contrary; the United States I know is a land of peace, plenty and generosity, populated by people who are, with very few exceptions, friendly, courteous, law-abiding and kind to strangers.
The northeastern economy has been hit hard by factory closings, no question, and income inequality has spiked since 2008.
But even so the U.S. remains the world’s most vibrant democracy and largest economy, possessed of the world’s most powerful military, by far.
It has no enemy, foreign or domestic, that comes close to posing a threat to its existence.
Yet you, through the alchemy of your rage and the echo chamber of social media, have managed to persuade millions of your fellow citizens that the opposite is true.
You are the first American politician to tap into the millennialism that has infused Western culture for the past 25 years.
And you may just turn the world upside down as a result. Bravo, sir. Bravo.