Mark Doten, ”TRUMP SKY ALPHA” w/ Nathan Deuel

Twice a week, the president pilots his ultraluxury airship Trump Sky Alpha between DC, NYC, and Mar-a-Lago, delivering a streaming YouTube address to the nation. In this speech he trumpets his successes and blasts his enemies, until one day his words plunge the world into nuclear war. One year later, with 90 percent of the world’s population destroyed, a journalist named Rachel has taken refuge in the Twin Cities Metro Containment Zone. Rachel accepts an assignment to document the final throes of humor on the internet in those moments before the war, hoping along the way to discover the final resting place of her wife and daughter.

What she uncovers in an archive of the internet’s remnants, hidden amid spiraling memes and Twitter jokes, are references to a little-known book that inspired a shadowy hacktivist group called the Aviary. Their role in the downfall of the internet, and the enigmatic presence of a figure known only as Birdcrash, take on immense and terrifying dimensions as Rachel ventures further into the ruins of the internet. Mark Doten, author of The Infernal, brilliantly details how the internet has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, laying the groundwork for the tumult of our current political moment and for the future headed our way.

Doten is in conversation with Nathan Deuel, author of Friday Was the Bomb: Five Years in the Middle East.