Can a teenage boy and his friends save America from Trumptocracy?
That’s the central question addressed in a controversial new dystopian novel series for young adults that, according to its author, “seeks not only to entertain but to awaken” them to the dangers that Donald Trump’s ideas pose to democracy.
“The Killing of Bere Baudin portrays life four decades from now, in an America that has replaced democracy with Trumptocracy, an autocratic form of government,” said author David Demers, a mass media sociologist and former newspaper reporter whose passion for free speech and civil liberties often got him into trouble but sparked a landmark federal appeals court ruling that extended constitutional protection to faculty speech uttered outside of the classroom (Demers v. Austin, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, 2014).
“A lot of news stories and commentaries today lay bare the dangers that Trumpian and radical right ideas pose to democracy, free speech, civil rights and liberties. My goal is to show Americans what life would be like if most of these ideas were actually enacted. I chose young people as the target audience for the book, because they are the ones who would be living under these policies.”
The novel begins in the year 2059 — 24 years after the “Second American Civil War.”
Donald Trump is long gone, but his followers have seized power and have abolished voting and civil rights and liberties. Schools have purged pro-democratic ideas from their curriculums. Protestors are executed, jailed, or forced to live in Partition 3 with the Dregs.
“A dictator called the Giebeter and 27 privately owned corporations control everything, including schools, government, police, and courts,” Demers explained. “Everything is privatized. There is no ‘public’; no voting, no free press, no due process, and few environmental protections.”
Yet many citizens embrace Trumptocracy, including 16-year-old Bere Baudin, who aspires to be a wealthy Vorster and live in Partition 1, a domed city with fresh air. His dreams are shattered, though, when one of his teachers gives him an encrypted ziphoid drive to give to his father, who has disappeared.
Police search for Bryce Baudin and arrest Bere and his grandmother. They escape, but Bere becomes distraught after learning that his father and grandmother are both Luminars, an outlawed group seeking to restore democracy. When police falsely charge Bere with murder and arrest his father and “Grammy,” he embarks on a mission to free them and uncover the mystery of the encrypted drive. But first he must convince Mr. Greenstone to help him.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Baudin?”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in the tips of my fingers.
I take a deep breath. “I — I want you to kill me.”
Greenstone stiffens his posture. ... “I’m sorry. ... I’m a stockbroker, not a killer. But I can refer you to a good therapist.” ...
I lean toward Greenstone and whisper in his ear, “‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ Now will you kill me?”(Excerpted from Chapter 1)
Although The Killing of Bere Baudin is a work of fiction, the notion that the United States or other democracies could embrace autocratic forms of rule is no longer in the exclusive realm of science fiction, Demers said. Freedom House — a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization — has documented a 7 percent decline in democratic processes from January 2017 to January 2021, when Trump occupied the White House. More than two dozen countries around the world now have stronger protection for democratic processes and freedom than the United States.
“This book is not a prediction of what will come,” Demers writes in a note in the front of his novel, “but a warning of what could happen if Americans fail to defend democratic processes, civil liberties and due process.”
Demers said he expects some Trump supporters and conservatives to criticize the book. “I welcome the criticism and encourage them to write their own novels about the future of America. Let’s see whose vision is more appealing.”
The Killing of Bere Baudin is the first book in a series titled “The Luminar Papers” and is loosely based on the 1971 “Pentagon Papers” case, in which the Supreme Court prohibited the Nixon Administration from censoring publication of a secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and southeast Asia.
The novel will be available for purchase on April 1, 2022, through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and bookstores. Ingram and Baker & Taylor are distributing the book.
A card game based on the book also will be available ($10.95; UPC 195893475506) from Amazon or directly from Marquette Books. The game is patterned in part after rules in rummy and poker.
Demers worked as a newspaper reporter, market research analyst, and professor before taking early retirement from Washington State University. He is author or editor of 18 trade and academic books, including Adventures of a Quixotic Professor: How One Man’s Lifelong Passion for Social Justice Bristles Bureaucracies and Sparks a Landmark Free Speech Ruling (2021), which chronicles personal and social history of Demers v. Austin (Ninth Circuit, 2014), a federal lawsuit that forced WSU administrators to stop punishing faculty for on-the-job faculty speech critical of administrators and their policies. Demers can be reached at david@luminars.org.
An electronic copy of this news release with full-color photographs is available at
https://marquettebooks.com/bookone.html
The Killing of Bere Baudin
By David Demers
114 pp, 5 x 8 format
Paperback $14.95 • ISBN 978-1-7327197-8-1
E-book/Kindle $2.99 • ISBN 978-1-7327197-7-4
The Luminars Card Game $10.95
Marquette Books LLC
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