America’s descent was already fiction — until it wasn’t. It was fake, it was fun, it was fiction, until it wasn't.
It imagined a United States that willingly hands itself — mind, body, and soul — to a charismatic media figure named Peter Masters.
In 1990, I published my first short story in a horror quarterly magazine, a dystopian sci-fi story titled “In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear.”
I've written about this story before.
Its title is an homage to Isaac Asimov's first autobiography, "In Memory, Yet Green".
Asimov and this autobiography in particular, had a profound impact on me. I read his science fiction as a kid in the 1960s. I read his autobiography in the late 1970s while I was in the USAF. He said in his book that the great Golden Age science fiction writers had been military technical writers. I was in the military at the time but later worked my way up to a Senior Technical Writer, in my case, in some of the top IT companies and departments in the Pacific Northwest.
I was also deeply affected by other authors of my youth like Ray Bradbury for his prose, and Harlan Ellison for his at times acerbic view of the world, who turned me onto the concept of being a speculative fiction writer.
My reason for writing this here today has to do with Donald Trump and the state of America. In Trump we've seen a mentally deficient man, an emotional dwarf, a sociopath, a narcissist, an autocrat by the nature of his personality and childhood, who has brough this mental illness to our public at large.
But in my sci fi story, the protagonist, is an intelligent man, a friend of our main character, Peter Masters, who never had to become President to take over. Because in his case, he is just that intelligent.
Unlike Donald Trump (now, regarding him as POTUS...this on Substack).
He doesn’t need to take over America through politics.
He becomes something far more dangerous:
The center of all attention and without being obnoxious.
Peter’s rise begins as entertainment — a talk show. Trump, as a TV show host who eventually fails.
Then Peter takes over total control of America's social media. Then full control of all media, all surveillance, all public information, all narrative.
The public cheers as he takes power piece by piece. Sound familiar yet?
Democracy doesn’t fall — it evaporates.
Now does this sound familiar?
The Villain Wasn’t a Politician. He Was a Celebrity.
Peter is mentally unstable — brilliant, yes — but unstable. Trump plays that kind of a character on TV and in the White House. But he is a vapid man, a petty man, a mental midget who is a one trick pony.
Both men's delusions are treated as genius.
Their propaganda feels like patriotism.
Their narcissism is packaged as salvation.
They become the nation’s brain, and Americans celebrate losing their own.
Meanwhile…
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Science bends to conspiracy
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Citizens are distracted into submission
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Children are groomed to accept surveillance as safety
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The wealthy expand power through entertainment rather than governance
And America’s allies?
Canada and Mexico do everything they can to distance themselves from the madness. Why? Because they are physically closest to US.
Keep in mind:
I wrote this around 1985, 40 years before Donald Trump declared that he alone could fix America.
The Road to Autocracy Isn’t Lined With Armored Tanks — It’s Paved With Infectious Media
Trump isn’t a genius engineer like Peter Masters. A salvation and an embarrassment for us.
He’s not inventing new technology — he’s exploiting existing weakness:
📺 The attention economy
🚨 The dopamine loop
📢 The fear machine
❤️ The parasocial bond
Autocrats don’t need votes when they have followers.
They don’t need laws when they have disbelief in law.
They don’t need a coup when millions decide the Dear Leader is democracy.
Peter and Trump both rise by corrupting the question:
“Who should lead?”
becomes
“Who makes me feel something?”
In Fiction, I Called It Propaganda. In Reality, It’s Primetime News.
Peter seizes control by promising:
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Safety
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Simplicity
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Spectacle
Trump promises the same thing — packaged in grievance, nostalgia, and revenge.
It’s the same populist trick:
“Only I can fix it.”
Translation:
“I must control everything.”
And too many Americans cheer.
Because the high of certainty feels better than the burden of truth.
The Scariest Part of the Story Wasn’t the Villain
The scariest part was that everyone in America…
welcomed him in.
They asked for it.
They begged for it.
They surrendered freely — as long as the TV stayed entertaining.
Just like now.
We didn’t need fictional monsters to show us how fragile democracy is.
We only needed to meet a man who knows how to sell.
A Warning I Never Wanted to Come True
When I wrote “In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear”, it was meant as satire — a cautionary tale about:
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unchecked charisma
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mentally unstable leaders
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tech-driven culture collapse
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propaganda as national identity
In 2025…
It feels like a documentary filmed ahead of schedule.
Art imitates life.
But sometimes life — horrifyingly — catches up.
And as history keeps reminding us:
Democracy doesn’t end when people lose their rights.
It ends when they stop caring that they’re losing them.
If my old story suddenly feels like today’s headlines…
That’s not science fiction.
That’s America trying to warn itself.
I wish us all the very best. But that will require Donald Trump receiving a destiny that is far, far from that.
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