Trump is a Character From a Stephen King Novel

Jack R. Noel

June 11, 2025

Do you remember Stephen King’s 1979 novel, The Dead Zone? In it the main character gains clairvoyant abilities that enable him to foresee things that are about to happen. Later King introduces Greg Stillson, a populist politician who holds crowds in the palm of his hands with his speeches. But the main character, Johnny Smith, foresees that Stillson will start a nuclear war once he gets elected president.

The story line doesn’t mention that Stillson often does things so over the top just when everyone believes he wouldn’t dare or isn’t serious. That’s what the real life J. D. Trump does. “He would never do that” is followed promptly by Trump doing exactly that.

And the novel varies from reality in another rather small way. In the novel, Johnny Smith dies before he can shoot Stillson when his body guard shoots poor Johnny. The unsatisfying conclusion is that Stillson still reveals himself by grabbing a woman’s baby and using the infant as a shield. But a photographer captures that moment and ruins Stillson’s chance to become president. Wishful thinking because Trump is already president and the wouldbe twenty year old sniper is killed by the Secret Service counter sniper detail using, get this, a .300 Winchester Magnum rifle. Anyone familiar with guns knows that…