Omens of the Trumpian Nightmare in Literature, Film, and Song

The presidency of Donald Trump is a nightmare I couldn’t have imagined five years ago. But some literature, film, and song earlier hinted that such a horrific time could  actually occur. In this essay I’ll present mainly those that I recall, and I hope Hollywood Progressive readers might furnish more.

More than a half century ago, I became familiar with Vladimir Soloviev’s “Short Story of the Anti-Christ.” Soloviev (1853-1900) was the leading Russian philosopher and poet of his day, and early in his career had been a young friend to the great Russian novelist Dostoevsky. Although I did not spend much time analyzing his short story, I did write my Ph.D dissertation on his polemics against Russian nationalists.

The anti-Christ figure appears most prominently in the Christian Bible, especially in the Book of Revelation, and the ecumenical Soloviev was thoroughly familiar with the Bible and other religious literature. But the anti-Christ he portrayed came to power in the future, in the twenty-first century.

Of course, Donald Trump was not even born when he depicted the anti-Christ. And in many ways his evil figure is very different than Trump—for example, ”owing to his great genius, by the age of thirty-three he [the anti-Christ] had already become famous as a great thinker, writer.”

But he did share some characteristics of our future president: “he loved only himself” [Soloviev’s italics]. “This man would bow down before the power of Evil as soon as it would offer him a bribe.” His “conception of his higher value showed itself in practice …in seizing his privilege and advantage at the expense of others.” He displayed “a complete absence of true simplicity, frankness, and sincerity.”“ [See here and here for Trump’s all-consuming egotism, and here for his constant lying.)

The anti-Christ also achieves high political office, “elected president of the United States of Europe for life.” One high figure who opposes him is the fictional Catholic pope at the time—”Get you gone, you incarnation of the Devil!” [See here and here for Pope Francis’s position on capitalism and climate-change, both contrary to those of Trump.] But many Christians had at first supported the anti-Christ, “with benevolent expectation and partly with unreserved sympathy and even fervent enthusiasm.”