Brave New World (1934). Nineteen Eighty Four (1949). The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). Fahrenheit 451 (1953). All four books have much in common: award winning status, traditional publishing origin, and all have landed in the Classic American literature zeitgeist. All are also categorized under the dystopian literature canon. Dystopian literature is defined as stories that personify a future time full of angst and uncertainty. Often more than none, are purely fictitious but can be inspired by actual events and can often be an embellished critique of the aforementioned event.
With events such as the overturning of Roe v Wade, the ongoing wars on capitalism, censorship, and climate change, and the multifarious occurrences of global and domestic civil unrest, has America entered the personification of a dystopian novel? What does this mean for the generations to come?
The Presidential Election is approximately four months away. Donald Trump has the possibility of becoming President again despite the many incidents where he demonstrates his incompetence and perfidy. Hate rhetoric in the form of Project 2025 has begun circulating and has the potential to eradicate any public autonomy over government policy past and present. These are very serious and scary instances. Many of which were occurring in some shape or form in the aforementioned novels.
This is why the 2024 Presidential Election matters now more than ever. Writers Gary Fields and Linley Sanders, in their 2024 article for the Associated Press, “Americans Agree that the 2024 Election Will Be Pivotal for Democracy, but for Different Reasons” writes, “In a politically polarized nation, Americans seem to agree on one issue underlying the 2024 elections — a worry over the state of democracy and how the outcome of the presidential contest will affect its future…a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 62% of adults say democracy in the U.S. could be at risk depending on who wins next fall.”
Democracy, the very thing the United States was founded on, could be at risk in this upcoming Presidential election. Understanding each candidate, each policy, and the immediate ramifications of each are going to be pivotal in imagining what the next few decades will look like.
A common caveat of literature is that though something may seem far removed from reality does not abrogate an opportunity to come to fruition. This begs the question of how close is America to becoming the next great Dystopian novel?
