I have loved post-apocalyptic fiction since I was 9 or 10 years old. I was 10 during the Cuban Missile crisis, and I remember being a little precocious shit once when my mom asked me what I really wanted to be when I grew up (my response: “you mean if I grow up, Mom”). There is something strangely appealing about a post-Armageddon world. For the 10-year-old me, it meant a world of no homework, no tests — and no one ever telling me what to do!
However, I know and have always known, that fiction is fiction. I am afraid that some of Trump’s followers think that the reality might actually be a great thing.
There is a reason that Zombie novels and movies and television are so popular these days. Not to mention world-wide deathly virus pandemics (The Stand and others), nuclear war, the Yellowstone Caldera exploding, the 1,000 foot tsunami when the Canary Islands have an earthquake. All of these scenarios would wipe out most of life on the planet, and yet people picture themselves as the hardy survivors. Survivors in a world with no mortgage, no bills, no laundry and no bosses. Life in the raw!
So, when the Doomsday-Preppers with their arsenals and their underground shelters hear Donald talking about “why not use nuclear weapons” I think they are cheering him on. After all, they have spent all this time and money — they would love a chance to say “I told you so.”
Except they, and all of us, would be dead. Or wish we were.