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The rise of Donald Trump from shady real estate magnate to vociferous reality TV star to President of the freaking United States of America is one of the strangest and unlikely tales ever written.
However, there is one other tale, written in 1893, that might be even more unlikely and strange because it has sparked a very interesting discussion about time travel.
It’s a story written by an author named Ingersoll Lockwood titled Baron Trump’s Marvelous Underground Journey.
Be warned, this story, brought to our attention by a TikTok video posted this week that’s now been viewed around five million times, has led to numerous comments such as this: “I came to TikTok for my usual dog videos and thirst traps and now I’m over here doing a research project like I’m back in college.”
@mattyicerants #stitch with @Kabba Gabba I've spent way too much time thinking about this coincidence 🤔 #trump #coincidence #foryou #fypシ゚viral #fyp #timetravel ♬ original sound – Kabba Gabba
Now, to be clear, the discovery of this book, and its companion The Travels and Adventures of Little Baron Trump and His Wonderful Dog Bulger, is not new to 2024, nor is its bizarre correlation to Donald Trump.
In 2017, writer Jaime Fuller of Politico authored an article about it that was as mind-blowing as TikToker @mattyicerants’ video.
“The first thing to know about Baron Trump is that he can’t stop talking about his brain,” Fuller begins the discussion. “While meeting with the Russian government, he talks about his glorious gray matter. As foreign women fall for him, he mentions his superior intelligence before casting them off. He once sued his tutors, alleging that they owed him money for everything he had taught them. He won.”
Fuller continues: “In these books, the young German protagonist, Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian Von Troomp, better known as Baron Trump, travels around and under the globe with his dog Bulger, meeting residents of as-of-yet undiscovered lands before arriving back home at Castle Trump. Trump is precocious, restless, and prone to get in trouble, with a brain so big that his head has grown to twice the normal size—a fact that, as we have seen, he mentions often.”
At one point in the book, the author writes, “The simple-minded peasantry came to look upon him as half-bigwig and half-magician.”
Hmmm…
Oh, and if you’re like me and aren’t buying another conspiracy theory about the time travel film Back to the Future that was mentioned in the TikTok video, @Mattyicerants has that covered as well.
@mattyicerants Replying to @kevrhutch9 Yes, Marty killed a pine tree but there's more to it! #timetravel #coincidence #trump #fyp #fypシ゚viral #foryou ♬ Mysterious and sad BGM(1120058) – S and N