If you’re thinking seriously about the future of America, you know that right now all bets are off. Face it: America is going down. It’s

full of enemy combatants ready to strike. It’s a nuclear time bomb. It’s the tallest buildings crumbling to dust. It’s a corporate-controlled surveillance state. It’s ghettos, graffiti, and the abandoned shell of industry. It’s endless ugly chain stores, transient strip-mall architecture, cheaply built McMansions, and shoddy imported goods no one is proud of. It’s the glamorous, Golden Age of Hollywood transformed into a raunchy, foul-mouthed, violent beast. It’s the Titanic about to test her might upon an iceberg. It’s a catastrophe right out of a 70s disaster film — that’s the reality of America right this second.

And when Donald Trump ended his speech last week in South Carolina, I knew he had the lead role in this movie.

“The American Dream is dead,” he flatly stated, and at that moment even the stream of chatroom comments in the live YouTube feed took a momentary pause. I felt history going down. Where in my lifetime political speeches were always the dreary, unconvincing cons of lying cheats, this was the courage of reported truth.

Not sick, not failing — dead. It’s as chilling as it’s obvious, and it’s where we are. We’ve been brought here by all manner of crooks and traitors, while meanwhile the greatness and possibility of America has faded far into the past — the space-age visions of yesterday’s tomorrows.

I’ve been used to this American dystopia for so long, a life of constantly-lowered national expectations, that the Trump phenomenon

caught me by surprise. I hadn’t expected it. In fact I didn’t even know much about the man at all outside the basic biographical facts and the hair — I don’t watch TV, I’ve never seen “The Apprentice.” I just knew him as a rich successful businessman who had a reality TV show — not someone with any bearing on my life.

But he was demonized and hated so viciously by the media, on all sides, that I knew I ought to pay attention: the media is not our friend. They’re never going to endorse any person who’s doing what’s morally right or any position that’s in the best interests of our nation. I know that. So I listened to him talk. And I couldn’t believe it — he was actually saying what must be said!

Trump isn’t a politician and if we want to survive, a politician isn’t what we need — no way! What we need now is a statesman. One with courage, a unifier, a man who can identify the important tasks that need to be done and to do them, no matter the danger or the risk.

Like so many others I recognize that role in Trump and I’m compelled to rally behind him. And the crowds who are with me are

totally unstoppable. There’s so much energy and excitement, and you can catch it everywhere, this great new feeling that in spite of

everything, there is hope. This thing is bigger and more authentic than any politician or movement in my lifetime. It’s probably true that Trump is presently more popular with the common man than JFK ever was before or during his presidency — and further, he’s even more important than JFK, because right now America, our entire civilization and way of life, is in danger of ending.

This isn’t a partisan question of “direction.” This is a serious, fighting matter for the life of the country. We’re tanking. From the national debt to national security, we’re on the downhill slide — and it’s picking up speed. If there’s any hope for America at all, the dream that is dead must be resurrected. This isn’t even worth an election, because there are no other candidates remotely qualified. A politician will only hang on for the final ride and suck what blood we’ve got left before the crash. The situation calls for someone with the courage to put everything on the line and lead the nation back to greatness.

If America’s a 70s disaster film — and look around, it is, it totally is — then Donald Trump’s the star. And it’s pretty obvious how this movie’s going to turn out: it’s going to be great!

Michael Stutz is the author of Circuits of the Wind, the story of the net generation.