Tomgram: John Feffer, Trump Rex
[Note to TomDispatch Readers:
In this deeply disturbing, demobilizing, coronaviral moment, TomDispatch is still on the job (so to speak). With today’s piece by John Feffer, who writes about our distinctly dystopian world as, aptly enough, the author of two remarkably vivid and farsighted dystopian novels, Splinterlands and its successor Frostlands, we have a rare offer for you. If you’re willing to contribute $100 or more ($125 if you live outside the U.S.) to this website, he’ll send you a signed, personalized copy of Frostlands. Just go to our donation page and do your damnedest and you’ll be helping TD get by in tough times indeed. Tom]
At maybe age 13, I can remember reading H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, his Martian invasion classic in which aliens tear up London, under the covers by flashlight while I was supposed to be asleep -- and I’ve read science fiction ever since. Ditto dystopian fiction from the time I stumbled across 1984 and Brave New World, again in my teens. I was an only -- when I was little, I thought it was “lonely” -- child and reading saved my life. So did the movies. They gave me a sense that there was another world out there, maybe scarier and stranger but also far more gripping and compelling than the one I was growing up in. With one exception: I’ve never been able to take horror films, never experienced the thrill of being scared out of my wits that way. I live in horror of horror, you might say, of something suddenly jumping out at me when I least expect it.
I remember, for instance, that when the film Jurassic Park came out (and I was writing a piece about dinosaurs), I had to recruit my son, who had already seen it, to go with me so that he could whisper warnings at the right moments. (“Dad, in maybe 30 seconds the Velociraptor is going to leap out of the grass.”) He was at an age when it was embarrassing as hell and I’m lucky he ever forgave me.
I bring this up only because, as TomDispatch regular John Feffer, the author of two dystopian novels, Splinterlands and Frostlands (that have proved remarkably on target when it comes to our splintering, sweltering planet), suggests today, we are now in a landscape of horror. A world we all thought we knew well is disappearing and, no matter what his scientific advisers may be telling him, our president has been visibly determined not to avoid the velociraptors. So, among the rest of stressed-out America, I finally feel in good company. Something -- we call it Covid-19 -- did indeed jump out at us, scaring the hell out of most of us. As the horror mounts, none of us can leave the movie theater, no matter how thorough our social distancing. Unfortunately, the equivalent of my son isn't here to warn us. Instead, we have the president Feffer labels “Trump Rex” (or, to fit thematically with this introduction, I might even call him, T. rex) who’s ready to scare us to hell and back daily. Nor is he from some dystopian future, some nightmarish fantasy written by a modern, slightly whacked-out George Orwell. He’s here right now, every day, a figure directly out of a horror movie -- and at present, he jumps out of the bushes, news conference by news conference, every night of the damn week. Tom
At maybe age 13, I can remember reading H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, his Martian invasion classic in which aliens tear up London, under the covers by flashlight while I was supposed to be asleep -- and I’ve read science fiction ever since. Ditto dystopian fiction from the time I stumbled across 1984 and Brave New World, again in my teens. I was an only -- when I was little, I thought it was “lonely” -- child and reading saved my life. So did the movies. They gave me a sense that there was another world out there, maybe scarier and stranger but also far more gripping and compelling than the one I was growing up in. With one exception: I’ve never been able to take horror films, never experienced the thrill of being scared out of my wits that way. I live in horror of horror, you might say, of something suddenly jumping out at me when I least expect it.
I remember, for instance, that when the film Jurassic Park came out (and I was writing a piece about dinosaurs), I had to recruit my son, who had already seen it, to go with me so that he could whisper warnings at the right moments. (“Dad, in maybe 30 seconds the Velociraptor is going to leap out of the grass.”) He was at an age when it was embarrassing as hell and I’m lucky he ever forgave me.
I bring this up only because, as TomDispatch regular John Feffer, the author of two dystopian novels, Splinterlands and Frostlands (that have proved remarkably on target when it comes to our splintering, sweltering planet), suggests today, we are now in a landscape of horror. A world we all thought we knew well is disappearing and, no matter what his scientific advisers may be telling him, our president has been visibly determined not to avoid the velociraptors. So, among the rest of stressed-out America, I finally feel in good company. Something -- we call it Covid-19 -- did indeed jump out at us, scaring the hell out of most of us. As the horror mounts, none of us can leave the movie theater, no matter how thorough our social distancing. Unfortunately, the equivalent of my son isn't here to warn us. Instead, we have the president Feffer labels “Trump Rex” (or, to fit thematically with this introduction, I might even call him, T. rex) who’s ready to scare us to hell and back daily. Nor is he from some dystopian future, some nightmarish fantasy written by a modern, slightly whacked-out George Orwell. He’s here right now, every day, a figure directly out of a horror movie -- and at present, he jumps out of the bushes, news conference by news conference, every night of the damn week. Tom
From Here to Dystopia
Not With a Bang But a Cough
by John Feffer
In retrospect, it’s no surprise that, after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, dystopian fiction enjoyed a spike in popularity. However, novels like George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which soared on Amazon, would prove more horror stories than roadmaps. Like so many ominous sounds from a dark basement, they provided good scares but didn’t foreshadow the actual Trumpian future.
Of course, it didn’t take an Orwell or an Atwood to extrapolate from the statements of candidate Trump to the policies of President Trump -- and such projections bore little resemblance to the worlds of Big Brother or an all-powerful patriarchy. Many Americans quickly began bracing themselves for something quite different: less totalitarian than total chaos. There would likely be unmitigated corruption, new wars, and massive tax cuts for the wealthy, along with an unprecedented reduction in government services and the further concentration of power in the executive branch. And it was a given that there would be boastfully incoherent presidential addresses, as well as mockery from officials in countries that had only recently been our closest allies. A Trumpian dystopia would be a Frankenstein monster constructed of the worst parts of previous administrations with plenty of ugly invective and narcissistic preening thrown in for bad measure.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
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