Margaret says Trump era ‘feels like 1930s’

Frankfurt Am Main: Award-winning novelist Margaret Atwood on Saturday said Donald Trump’s America reminded her of Europe in the 1930s, and warned that the world was “at a moment of change and disruption”.

“I think it’s a moment of turmoil everywhere,” the 77-year-old author said at the Frankfurt book fair.

“This feels like the 1930s,” she told a press conference, referring to the rise of populist leaders and fascism that ultimately led to World War II.

“And what’s surprising to many people in Europe is that this is also happening in the United States” which was long seen as “a beacon of democracy”, Atwood added.

George Orwell’s 1984 and her own 1985 book The Handmaid’s Tale, about a totalitarian regime where fertile women live in sexual servitude, were resonating right now because those worlds no longer seemed so far-fetched.

“People suddenly feel that it’s a possible reality for them,” said Ms Atwood, a prolific Canadian author and poet famed for her cautionary tales.

The Handmaid’s Tale is now a major television show, and the story’s trademark I think it’s a moment of turmoil everywhere. This feels like the 1930s. And what’s surprising to many people in Europe is that this is happening in the US” which was long seen as “a beacon of democracy” Margaret Atwood,

red cloaks and white bonnets have been donned as symbols of protest at US demonstrations against threats to women’s healthcare under Mr Trump. “There’s a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction and resistance, but no leading figure has appeared yet,” Ms Atwood said.

The US Republican party is “in disarray”, she said, while the Democrats had yet to formulate a response. “One wonders what the Democrats are going to come up with because so far... ‘hello, where are you?’” she said.

Asked what she would say to Mr Trump, Ms Atwood jokingly replied: “Could you get that Twitter account away from him, please?”

But she also praised the power of social media in giving a voice to the voiceless, as highlighted in the sexual assault scandal surrounding Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.