Subtlety, thy name is Tabankin.
A 2015 political novel by conservative author Ira Tabankin.
This shows the world of 2050, a Bad Future wherein shifting demographics have led to a majority Muslim America, and every secular European government has already been overthrown and merged into the European Caliphate. Now it seems to be America's turn as President Osama bin Muhammad (sometimes spelled 'Mohmand' for no apparent reason) is elected the first Muslim President of the US, and immediately moves to ban consumption of pork products, make all American foods Halal, institute a religious police force to enforce Sharia law, seal the borders, deport all (non-Muslim) immigrants, and tax all non-Muslims.
But not all hope is lost, as outgoing President Jackson sees the new President for what he is, and forms a growing resistance movement from the day he leaves office, one swelled as other religious and ethnic groups in America set aside their differences to fight in the new Civil War.
Tabankin takes a certain pride in being politically incorrect, and this is not his first (or even his fifth) novel about a future civil war in America where the heroes are all square-jawed, conservative, and most probably white, men.
There is now a sequel, In the Year 2050 - Book Two.
This work contains the following tropes:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Technically thirty five years, but you'd never know it. The only changes are a Muslim majority, holographic TVs and VR games.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Surprisingly averted in the sequel, which shows various consequences to a military coup.
- Author Tract: An extreme example. The story will go on, at length, about the mendacity of mainstream media and the perils of Islam.
- Buccaneer Broadcaster: EIBLAZE, a network formed by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh to resist Islamic censorship has to move offshore, and eventually run an internet show out of Israel.
- Card-Carrying Villain: President Osama bin Muhammad. In the very first chapter, when meeting President Jackson two hours before his inauguration, he feels the need to gloat about all the ways he's going to destroy America and all the infidels he will kill.
- Contrived Coincidence: How convenient for President Jackson that while he's still mulling over armed rebellion, his Secret Service detail has taken the liberty of arranging a number of secure safe houses, and his former NSA Deputy Director has buried back doors into all government computers and secretly developed technology to hide their online activity. Also that Jackson was somehow elected President in 2046. Either the 73% Muslim voting bloc fell down on the job, or he allowed an explosion in the Muslim population.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Ultimately, President Obsma is castrated and crucified, his torturous death broadcast to the world. Adding insult to injury, the sequel reveals his corpse was treated very disrespectfully.
- Eurabia: In this story, all of Europe has already become a caliphate.
- Expo Speak: Everyone talks like this, telling each other things they already know in unnecessary detail.
- Fallen States of America: Implicit in the premise is that a Muslim majority will lead to this.
- Gullible Lemmings: Apparently, despite a 73% Muslim majority that vote as a monolithic bloc, despite the lack of televised debates and the media's refusing to show advertising for any opposition candidates leading several people to believe he was running unopposed, the major thing that swung President Muhammad's narrow victory was that the Islamic party renamed themselves the Green Party. The majority of votes came from people who thought they were voting on environmental issues.
- Hollywood Law: Two arguments are advanced for why Jackson can become the president against despite serving two terms. First, that his third term wouldn't be continuous with the rest of his presidency, which is nonsense. Second, after every single official in the line of succession resigns or refuses the office (itself a fairly unlikely event) Congress votes to waive the Constitutional Amendment setting term limits for the presidency, which Congress absolutely does not have the authority to do.
- Info Dump: Right at the beginning, with a news broadcaster catching the viewer up on forty-plus years of political history, with the reveal that Obama was a secret Muslim too.
- Insistent Terminology: The leader of the Resistance is always referred to as either "President Jackson" or "Former President Jackson" by other characters and the narrative alike.
- Middle Eastern Coalition: All the Middle East unites into one happy Caliphate.
- Mr. Exposition: The newscasters at the beginning are oddly interested in fleshing out the history of the last thirty-five years, to the point of bringing up all the things 'we in the media' didn't report on.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Strongly averted, with Obama and Clinton taking the biggest hits. The former being revealed as a secret Muslim whose every policy was aimed at destroying America from within and setting up the eventual Caliphate, and the latter being shown as hysterical and comically corrupt.
- Obviously Evil: One really wonders how President Muhammad ever managed to get away with claiming to be a moderate Muslim, when he can't go ten minutes without ranting about destroying the infidel, including doing so on national television, and they had to cancel the televised presidential debates because he refused to share a stage with a non-believer.
- President for Life: In the opening chapter, President Muhammad makes it abundantly clear that he has no intention of stepping down or holding elections in four years, but means to make himself Caliph-first of America, then the world.
- Propaganda Machine: After years of censorship, all existing cable news is folded into one network called... Al Jazeera.
- The Resistance: President Jackson ends up leading this. Reluctantly at first.
- Suicide Attack: Apparently suicide bombings are an almost weekly occurrence in the US from 2020 onwards, but the media doesn't report these. President Muhammad has to order his people to knock it off at one point, to help sell Islam as a religion of peace- reminding them it's okay to lie to infidels.
- Time Marches On: The book begins with a recitation of future history and how various presidents reacted to President Obama's legacy. Beginning with Ted Cruz, elected in a landslide in 2016 after Rush Limbaugh discovered all of Clinton's missing emails and she melted down in the televised debates with him.
- Voice of the Resistance: EIBLAZE, the one True American (and conservative) network, run from Israel.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: American election years are always divisible by 4. Guess which number does not divide evenly into “2050”?
