Nathan Rabin is an author, columnist and the proprietor of the website Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place, where he first wrote about Seagal’s novel.

The ultimate kitsch artifact from the early days of the Trump era is a novel, The Way of the Shadow Wolves: The Deep State and the Hijacking of America, and it’s written by two patriots deeply concerned with immigration control and the malevolent forces abetting the destruction of America: Tom Morrissey, a U.S. marshal-turned-novelist, and Steven Seagal.

Yes, that Steven Seagal: former movie star, ponytail enthusiast, blues guitarist, energy drink proprietor, prolific direct-to-streaming C-list actor, Putin and Trump superfan, alleged serial sexual harasser and a former reserve sheriff in Louisiana and Arizona.


Even as Trump has abandoned birtherism, blaming it all on the nasty FAKE NEWS, neither Seagal nor Morrissey are so swayed by reality and an overwhelming preponderance of evidence. While the authors don’t make explicit reference to forged birth certificates, the massive scope of Barack Obama’s almost satanic evil in Shadow Wolves renders the prospect of a mere faked birth certificate totally inconsequential.

Consequently, The Way of the Shadow Wolves isn’t just a conspiracy thriller; it’s more of an every conspiracy thriller. And what sinister mastermind lurks malevolently at the very top of a twisted plan to destroy America by flooding it with terrorists? None other than Barack Hussein Obama.

Even a figure as transparently evil as Obama needs help, however, so in Shadow Wolves, Obama is in cahoots with a motley assortment of evildoers, including his Islamic terrorist brethren, a murderous Mexican drug cartel and the shadowy Deep State—forces that would be only too happy to replace the Constitution with Sharia law. All that stands in the way of this sinister cabal, with its hashish-fueled and hooker-laden sex-murder orgies, is a godly, morally pure assemblage of “Shadow Wolves,” Native American lawmen uniquely adept at tracking drug dealers and illegal immigrants. (I was shocked to discover that Shadow Wolves actually exist and are a real unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, because they’re portrayed here as the ultimate romanticized fantasy of Native Americans: real-life Jedi whose heritage gives them borderline supernatural powers and allows them to live in perfect harmony with nature.)

In his introduction to this Fox News fever dream, Sheriff Joe Arpaio writes, “It is my hope that you have not only enjoyed the story line of The Way of the Shadow Wolves, but you will also think about the message portrayed here. It is less than a hair’s breadth from the frightening truth of what is actually happening today.”

As cautionary warnings go, this is the socio-political equivalent of Reefer Madness in terms of unintentional laughs. Instead of being a terrifying dispatch from tomorrow, it reeks of high camp.

The story is, essentially, a fight pitting Obama and his newfangled Axis of Evil (the Deep State, Islamic jihadists and the Mexican cartel, who obviously share many goals and have complementary ideologies) versus an entire squadron of Billy Jacks. In fact, Seagal and Morrissey repeatedly and reverently reference Billy Jack, the once-ubiquitous but now mostly forgotten film series in which actor/director/co-writer Tom Laughlin portrayed the ultimate underclass lefty avenger—a half-Native American Vietnam veteran-turned-wise protector of everyone left behind in Nixon’s America. Seagal and Morrissey don’t seem to realize that Billy Jack’s politics—anti-war, anti-Big Business, hippie-loving—are antithetical to their own; to them, his defining characteristic is that he was a ridiculous caricature of Native American wisdom and spirituality who also kicked ass. (In a wonderfully representative bit of dialogue in the book, a protagonist actually explains, “Billy Jack was a fictional character who kicked dumb shits, uh, like you, in the nuts. He did that in a lot of his movies.”)

Elsewhere in the book, we get a Pizzagate-esque explanation of what exactly the Deep State is, when a Mexican official complains, “It is crystal clear to all of us that the [U.S. government] is completely penetrated, and this trafficking of human jihadists is approved by [Obama] himself and being protected by rogue elements of the CIA, FBI and DEA—the same rogue elements that have been smuggling drugs, guns, gold, cash, and small children for the American elite ever since Allen Dulles and J. Edgar Hoover first created a secret state within a state.” In a law enforcement establishment overflowing with traitors intended on bringing down the nation, Arpaio, who is now running for Senate, is here lovingly referenced as one of the only people who can be trusted.

You would imagine a man with as much on his plate as Seagal would hire an actual novelist to ghost-co-write his novel, but The Way of the Shadow Wolves is so adorably incompetent and inept that it’s hard to imagine that a professional writer had anything to do with it.

Seagal and Morrissey’s book is intended as a startling warning of the horrible danger our nation is under, but it closes on a hopeful note with the election of Donald Trump—who is not mentioned by name, but is depicted as a white knight (emphasis on white) on a steed saving Western civilization from the evil Muslim hordes that would destroy it.

Following an upswell of patriotism sweeping Trump into office, the authors write toward the book’s end, “The [outgoing] POTUS was in full disaster mode, leading an effort to discredit and drive his successor from office. Fully funded by a multibillionaire outside the country, rioters were being recruited and paid for by this cabal and were waging war against the Constitution and the will of the American people.”

All is not lost, however, as the novel ends on a note of breathless hyperbole: “Finally, there was a feeling of tremendous change sweeping across the land as a new president was sworn into office and was immediately beset unto by the Deep State and those left behind from the previous administration. But he was smarter and stronger and far more adept than any of them had ever imagined.”

When Trump first started running for office, a lot of people suspected, perhaps correctly, that his presidential run was little more than a cynical bid to generate interest and excitement in a Trump News Network to the right of Fox News—a plan that went horribly awry when Trump accidentally ended up getting elected president. On a similar note, I can’t but help wonder if Sheriff Joe’s whole senatorial campaign (which would seem quixotic were it not for the fact a former reality TV host and Arpaio superfan sits in the Oval Office) is little more than a bid to win the attention of reality TV producers and generate interest for a Sheriff Joe reality show. I’m sure Seagal would be happy to pop in regularly—after all, Arpaio let the actor join the Maricopa County sheriff’s department for season three of the reality TV dud “Steven Seagal: Lawman.”

Shadow Wolves ends with a disclaimer: “This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. But always remember that the truth comes in many forms.” Also worth remembering, especially as the line between bad reality TV, conspiracy theory and real life blurs to the point of meaninglessness: Bullshit comes in many forms, too.