When it comes to the U.S., which is in the midst of great transition, and alleged prophecy, perhaps the most intriguing thing came not from a mystic or seer but a political writer, lawyer, and novelist in the late 1800s named Ingersoll Lockwood from Ossining, New York, who wrote a series of novels, two of which were for children and focused on a curious fictional character whose name, if this rings a bell, was “Baron Trump.”

That’s missing the second “r” in the current presidential son’s first name, of course, but it seems uncanny nonetheless. In the old novel, “Baron Trump” is portrayed as an aristocratically endowed young man living in a place called “Trump Castle.”

That was the name, a century later, in essence, of a casino Donald Trump built in Atlantic City. 

In the fiction — again, from more than a hundred years ago — “Baron Trump” was further described as having an unending imagination and an “active” brain bored with the lavish lifestyle of which he is accustomed.

In the novels, more ironically, the boy visits Russia on an adventure that ends up shaping the rest of his life.

And while in Russia, the fictional Baron Trump’s adventures are guided by a “master of all masters” named “Don.”

Uncanniest of all: Lockwood’s final novel, published in 1896 and about an election, describes a “state of uproar” in New York City over an outsider winning the U.S. presidency. The name “Trump” is not in this Ingersoll  novel, but the links are as clear as they are startling. “Mobs of vast size are organizing under the lead of anarchists and socialists, and threaten to plunder and despoil the houses of the rich who have wronged and oppressed them for so many years,” Lockwood wrote. “The Fifth Avenue Hotel will be the first to feel the fury of the mob.”

Of course, Fifth Avenue is where Trump Tower is located. Asked the novel, “Would the troops be in time to save it?”

One notes the uproars in places like Minneapolis and the “No King” marches two weeks ago that had up to eight million on the streets in various cities protesting what demonstrator see as a usurpation of the democracy. “Gutting healthcare, environmental protections, and education when families need them most,” says a statement from the organizers. “Rigging maps to silence voters. Ignoring mass shootings at our schools and in our communities. Driving up the cost of living while handing out massive giveaways to billionaire allies, as families struggle. Spending billions of our tax dollars on missile strikes abroad all while driving up the cost of living and handing out massive giveaways to billionaire allies.”

You can make of it what you might (if anything). 

Unnervingly, the book was entitled: “The Last President.”

Mobs? Socialists? Did a young socialist not just win a stunning election in New York City? And years before, when the current president was elected, were there not large protests at Trump Tower?

Are more to come?

One day, civil war?