Several similarities between Donald Trump’s rise to political power and books written by an obscure 1800s author have some on the internet scratching their heads.
Ingersoll Lockwood was an American diplomat and lawyer who wrote children’s novels, fiction, and nonfiction in the late 1800s. However, a few of his books have been rediscovered in recent years due to some uncanny details that parallel the current president.
Lockwood penned a two-part children’s series featuring a protagonist named Baron Trump. The character sparked online curiosity, of course, beginning with his name. Not only is he named Trump, but Barron is the name of the president’s youngest son (though they are spelled differently).
In the books, Baron Trump is a precocious troublemaker who brags about his smartness. He also lives in a building named after himself—”Castle Trump”—as a parallel to the real-life Trump Tower. He is mentored by a character named “Don” and goes on an adventure that begins in Russia.
Following Donald Trump’s election in 2016, internet theorists rediscovered Ingersoll Lockwood’s baron trump series
The similarities continue in another of Lockwood’s books, 1900; or, The Last President. In that novel, a political outsider from New York unexpectedly becomes the president. The election leads to protests in the streets and ultimately the downfall of the American Republic.
However, no matter how predictive Lockwood’s books may have been, it’s unlikely Trump himself has read them.
Former Saturday Night Live cast member Pete Davidson claimed in a 2015 interview that the president “doesn’t really know how to read.”
Opening up about Trump’s appearance as SNL host on the Opie Radio podcast, Davidson explained that the then-presidential candidate would ignore scripts and cue cards, instead choosing to “improv” his lines.
“He would go, ‘Uh, I’m not gonna say this. I think I’m gonna say it the way I wanna say it. Is that OK, Lorne?’” he recalled. “And everyone is like, what?”
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