Trump's wall and "The Walking Dead" have this in common

Dahlia Schweitzer doesn’t technically identify Trump as a zombie fighter in her new book “Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses and the End of the World.” But her argument suggests that he’s caught in one of those undead narratives.

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Schweitzer’s book looks at epidemic disease narratives over the last 20 years, starting with “Outbreak” (1995) and going through the current and never-ending zombie television apocalypse of AMC’s “The Walking Dead.” She concludes that these proliferating, infectious stories of disease have become intertwined with fears of globalization and our frighteningly interconnected world. Two decades ago, zombies were a minor horror genre; now the IMDB database has a list of the 50 most popular zombie films released in 2015.

Pop culture stories about infectious diseases have become more common, but also more focused on the global apocalypse. Without borders, we are unprotected and vulnerable. Which is also why, in Trump’s view, we need to start building walls. (Indeed, Trump heads to California on March 13 to get his first in-person look at wall prototypes in San Diego.)

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