The Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

 
It's of course obvious now that the incoming administration's denial of its interest in Project 2025 was just as much a lie as pretty much everything that comes out of Trump's mouth, and I'll be posting a sort of point-by-point checkoff of the plan as we enter the next administration, but today I was abruptly struck by the fact that in their own ways, two video games have been uncomfortably on target with the current era, one in a bit more exaggerated form than the other. 

The latter is, of course, METAL GEAR RISING: REVENGEANCE, which ultimately involves a wide and deep conspiracy to use crisis politics and internet memery, along with appropriately-targeted violence, to usher in a sort of Anarcho-Libertarian utopia in which the strong effectively crush the weak, led by the More Manly Than You Senator Armstrong. This is the image of the Strong America of the Musk-type "Freedom" fanboys, their fantasy of somehow emerging the rulers of a purified, reborn world after bringing down the corrupt old order. Armstrong himself literally LECTURES Jack Raiden, the "hero" of the game, on his half-baked philosophy and bellows that he'll "Make America Great Again!". Note that this was in, I think, 2013, well before Trump's rise to the political stage. It's hard NOT to see some of the parallels here, even leaving that eerie call-out from the past. 

Even more accurate, if slightly less bombastic, and far more on-point for the modern younger voter, is Persona 5. In this game, the main characters (starting with the primary viewpoint character's background) are bullied/oppressed/threatened by adults -- always men -- in positions of power. The characters' main power of Persona is, in this game, manifested as the ability to enter the mental constructs, the "Palaces", of these people and, if successful, find their way to their center and break the twisted desires and beliefs that form the heart of each one. This is of course a terrible shock to the target, who generally will then break down and confess their crimes and accept punishment or seek to perform restitution.

But the NATURE of this villainy is one of the things that really drives home the modern parallel. These are all the people, from the small-time to the big-time, who make the world worse simply by being themselves. The big-star coach who uses his reputation to be a little school tyrant and to force high-school girls into intimate situations; the criminal who manipulates others with blackmail; the businessman who exploits both customers and employees for the sake of a few more profits; and at last, the politician who uses all this manipulation -- and his own knowledge of the Persona universe -- to set up the collapse of the ship of state in order to make a little empire of his own, ruling over the rich and powerful survivors as the world burns. 

In both games, the main thing they miss is the pathetically BANAL nature of the front man of the takeover; Trump is too weak and trivial a personality to take seriously as an opponent. It's true that behind Trump there are others, more competent and less mockable, but they're not nearly so visible. 

Yet any player of these, and especially of Persona, must feel an awful and revolting echo in the real world from what was supposed to be a more escapist story, in which you, personally, have the power to make the selfish see themselves for who they are, to confront the darker heart and make it bright.