I think I’ve mentioned before how I read a lot of Stephen King’s novels when I was a teenager. I worked at a bookshop from the age of 15 through to 22, and one of the perks was being able to take a book off the shelf and read it, provided you tried really hard not to bend the spine so that someone felt like they were buying a pre-read book when they eventually purchased it!
One of the Stephen King books I read at that time was called ‘The Dead Zone‘, a story about Johnny Smith, a school teacher who was involved in a car accident that resulted in him acquiring a brain injury that gave him the power of premonition. In it, he shakes the hand of an upcoming Senate nominee, Greg Stillson, and he sees him in the role of President ordering nuclear missiles to be fired. This lands him in the ethical dilemma of wondering if he can change the course of history if he stops him in his course to election.
I’m not sure if you’re making any parallels to events transpiring right now, but for weeks I’ve been wondering if Stephen King is thinking he may have written a prophetic novel with the rise of Donald Trump as he comes closer and closer to Republican party nomination for President.
It seems I’m not alone. Doing a Twitter search for ‘The Dead Zone’ this afternoon saw countless tweets from people thinking the same thing. Then I saw this.
Seeing this from The Economist’s Intelligence Unit only further increases my sense of foreboding about the state of US politics.
Who knows how this political saga will conclude. If it’s anything like ‘The Dead Zone’, then the actions of Trump will usurp his grand plans.
Let’s wait and see how things unfold…and cross our fingers for the sake of humanity.
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