A Western TV show from 1958 with creepy, uncanny similarities to our current plight. A con man named Trump claims he is the only one who can save a small Texas town from impending doom -- by building a wall.

The show was called Trackdown, and starred a young Robert Culp as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman. The dialogue from the episode, called The End of the World, is uncannily familiar.

Narrator: The people were ready to believe. Like sheep they ran to the slaughterhouse. And waiting for them was the high priest of fraud.

Trump: I am the only one. Trust me. I can build a wall around your homes that nothing will penetrate.

Townperson: What do we do? How can we save ourselves?

Trump: You ask how do you build that wall. You ask, and I’m here to tell you.

In another eerie scene, when confronted with the fact that he's a con man, Trump threatens to sue.

Excerpts from the TV Show Trackdown:

Trackdown: The End of the World (Full episode)

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Update: Although some news reports have tried (and failed) to link the name of the Trump character in Trackdown to Fred Trump (Donald Trump's father), a more likely explanation is that that in the 1950's the phrase "The Last Trump" was slang for "the end of the world". It's a phrase from the Bible, 1 Corinthians 15, where the Bible talks about the Last Judgement and the end of days:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

Issac Asimov wrote a short story about the end of days in 1957 called The Last Trump. Characters in several of Robert A. Heinlein's stories from that era use the phrase as well.

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aznar@pigdog.org