POLICE STATE USA April 18, 2025

A favorite novel begins with a terrified protagonist: 

“The footsteps—thick-sole, steel-toe heavy, no pretense at stealth—approached our floor from the wrong direction. On a Monday morning, most people left their apartments for work, shlepped their still-sleepy way down the stairs as Indira had earlier. The stomping that terrified me came up from the lobby. I guessed two men. Possibly three. Probably three. They fetishized displays of muscle.”

Tsarist Russia? Nazi Germany? The Soviet Union? No, The Covenantal States of America. The novel is 2084 by yours truly. In the year 2044, the Constitution of the United States has been replaced to form a Christian nation. Non-white Christians and non-Christians are second-class citizens by law.  

Fantasy? More of a guarded prediction.

The narrator, Sam Klein, belongs to a clandestine group of stand-up comics. He’s organizing a July Fourth comedy protest since his Indian-American wife Indira, a native Californian, faces deportation. The C.S.A., an autocracy, also is about to ban stand-up. Why? Comedy often reveals “the emperor’s new clothes.”

They say, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Such wisdom would be trite if we didn’t see it unfolding in America.

In 19 years, the United States could become a formally Christian nation if Donald Trump and his MAGA adherents, including Christian nationalists, have their way. (See below.) The police state which frightens Sam in 2084 is developing here and now. Non-citizens are swept up by ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement—and deported. Trump scoffs at due process. He also seeks to impose his views on our elite universities by withdrawing grants and threatening to end tax-exempt status. Harvard’s fighting back.

On Tuesday, pbs.org reported in “Why Trump’s idea of imprisoning U.S. citizens in El Salvador is likely illegal” that “President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated that he’d like to send U.S. citizens who commit violent crimes to prison in El Salvador, telling that country’s president, Nayib Bukele, that he’d ‘have to build five more places’ to hold the potential new arrivals.” Legal? No. Does Trump care? To hell with the Constitution. 

If violent, native-born criminals are deported, will “political” criminals be far behind? I frequently call out Trump for his attempts at autocratic rule, mirroring the President in 2084. (“2084” is a catch phrase used by graffiti taggers to wake up the citizenry by recalling George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984.)

America seems headed down the rabbit hole. The New York Times’ Adam Liptak reported on Tuesday (“In Showdowns With the Courts, Trump Is Increasingly Combative”) that “The Trump administration’s compliance with court orders started with foot-dragging, moved to semantic gymnastics and has now arrived at the cusp of outright defiance.”

Stanford English professor Shelley Fisher Fishkin put it well in the April 15 San Francisco Chronicle, offering quotes  from Mark Twain. Twain’s take on a president from more than a century ago: “He became so expert in duplicity, and so admirably plausible that he couldn’t tell himself when he was lying and when he wasn’t.”

Can a “nation of laws” become a nation of kingly fiat? I don’t think America will, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t—not by any stretch of the imagination, even mine. In 2084, Sam Klein experiences terrifying shocks. Americans must stay alert and protective of our Constitution to avoid the same.

The May Atlantic’s cover theme: “It’s Later Than You Think.” A disturbing, but not surprising, article in today’s New York Times: “White House of Worship: Trump Elevates Christian Prayer and Power.”

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Order my novel, TAKING STOCK (Kirkus Reviews starred selection) — or 2084 —in softcover or e-book from Amazon, barnesandnoble.com or iuniverse.com. Or from your favorite bookstore.