The inauguration of Donald Trump 2.0 foretold
Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration sparks unsettling parallels to dystopian fiction, with his “manifest destiny” rhetoric, Mars ambitions, and frontier ideals raising troubling questions about America’s expansionist and divisive past.
T he inauguration of Donald Trump 2.0 was foretold.
No really. By science fiction writer Olivia E Butler.
Well, at least she seemed remarkably prescient in Parable of the Talents, her novel, set in 2032.
It had the right political slogan. Make America Great Again was the preferred cry of President Andrew Steele Jarret.
It was accurate about the Christian fundamentalist overtones that the Trump administration appears to share with that of the fictional President Jarret.
And it was right about the aspirational mood music. In the age in which the make-believe presidency played out, a new religion called Earthseed believes that humanity’s destiny is to live on other planets. Remember Mr Trump said, in his second inauguration address on Jan 20, 2025, that his America would plant the Stars and Stripes on Mars?
The parallels are all there. But here’s where fiction cannot keep up with reality.
Mr Trump, somewhat astonishingly, called America’s quest for Mars its “manifest destiny”. By reaching back into 19th-century history to explain his intended expansionism, he revealed the dark rivets that tether his 21st-century aspirational agenda for America.
For, Manifest Destiny was the idea that white Americans are divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America.
At his second inauguration, Mr Trump spoke of, to and for an idealised frontier culture, which includes the settling of a barren land.
It glorified the more hideous effects of a philosophy that inspired policies and practices meant to obliterate Native Americans on their home ground.
GOING FURTHER
Parable of the Talents, by Octavia E. Butler | HEADLINE
President Trump: “American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars” | USA TODAY
Sources:
▪ This piece was first published in Medium and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 24 January 2025 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.
▪ Cover: Flickr/White House 45. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)
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