Mind Control

While back, I read this series of books: Wild Cards, edited (and partially written by) George R. R. Martin, back before his Game Of Thrones was a thing.

Spoilers for a book that’s old enough to drink: Our heroes discover that the man who will likely be our next President has used his psychic powers to manipulate his way all along the electoral process... and that rather than being the moral upstanding family man he presents, he is in fact, a twisted, evil, homicidal maniac who uses those same psychic powers to feed on other people’s suffering. It gets him off.

God knows what he will do as President.

So one of our heroes has to make a moral choice. And he takes psychic possession of the guy at the Convention, where he’s about to accept his party’s nomination... and forces the candidate to say some horrible things, and act like a twisted loony, right there in front of all the delegates. The entire convention is horrified, and the speech makes front page news... and the bad guy does NOT get the nomination.

Now, I’m not sayin’ that Donald Trump is evil. Or twisted. Or insane. And I’m pretty sure he’s not psychic.

It just occurred to me that if that book was written today? And a candidate went fruity-gumballs, right there on the podium, and started spouting crazy talk?

There’d be a substantial portion of the American public who’d say, “Right! THERE’s a man who’s not afraid to speak his mind, and I AGREE WITH HIM!” And some news agencies would point out the crazy... and other news agencies would call it a rousing success. And while some of us would be shocked and horrified...

...others would eat it up. To be on the winning team. To stick it to those OTHER people, who have it COMING!

So take a look at that title, up there, again. Wonder if we’ll see more of that? And how much? And how soon?