The man is a clown. He goes charging around the speaking platform, like that at every rally [...] He's a clown, so what? [...] So people want a giggle or two. Even more, they want to thumb their noses at a political establishment that doesn't seem able to solve anything."
It would be easy to mistake that as an old quote about Donald Trump. Maybe a comment from a political analyst in the early stages of his campaign. Maybe a line from an interview with a member of the public discussing the ever-increasing popularity of his 2015 rallies.
It's not, though. Despite the similarities, that's actually a line spoken by a character in the 1979 Stephen King novel "The Dead Zone". The man being referred to is the fictitious Greg Stillson: a ruthless salesman-turned-politician whose eccentric stunts and anti-establishment rhetoric helps him amass a huge public following. Basically, a man who goes from businessman (and real-estate broker) to politician and takes Washington completely by surprise.
The story is about a man who gains precognitive powers after coming out of a four-year coma. He wakes up and finds he can predict the future. Ironically, the novel itself seems to have a similar power. Greg Stillson's rise to popularity — from an outsider who's treated as something of a joke to a genuine political threat — is almost prescient in its evocation of Trump's rise. Stephen King himself tweeted about the similarity last year, and many of his fans have been saying it for a while.
"The Dead Zone" is a long way from an exact foreshadowing. The comparisons only go so far. But for a story published way back in 1979 — a full 36 years before Trump stood on a podium in front of four U.S. flags to announce his candidacy — it's chilling in its accuracy.
Read the book here or view the movie on YouTube:
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