The ghosts of Donald Trump have haunted us through the decades.

Stephen King is an ardent Trump critic. Here is a representative tweet:

Unlike Donald Trump, who doesn't read, Kim Jong-un knows The Art of War, by Sun Tzu: "Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance."

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 9, 2019

There are many Stephen King tweets about Trump, and most of them are not kind.

I just happen to read King’s Bag of Bones now, which was published in 1998 and plays in that time. In it, one of the primary antagonists is a tech billionaire who abuses people with his money. Here is an excerpt I came across:

“I’m a lucky girl, don’t you think? First I marry the son of an extremely rich man, and after he dies, I fall under the protective wing of another rich guy. Next I’ll probably move in with Donald Trump.”

— King, Stephen. Bag of Bones: A Novel (p. 190). Scribner. Kindle Edition.

That reference made me check the copyright date of the book, and sure enough, it was 1998. Trump was around then, and notorious enough to make it into a Stephen King novel.

There is a new chain of Pieology restaurants. They are pizza places where you can customize your individual pizza. While patrons stand in line, they can peruse a large wall of famous quotes. The picture below is of this wall at the Escondido location. I took it before Trump ran for president.

You can see, among many others, there is a quote attributed to Donald Trump:

As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.

While this is attributed to Trump, I am pretty sure it was used by many motivational speakers long before Trump, but we now know that Trump likes to “own” things and thoughts that aren’t really his.

Here is the funny thing: When we recently went back to Pieology, this quote by Trump was nowhere to be found. They had placed a sticker with another quote over it, so Trump is not on the board now. I am assuming that this was done in all Pieology stores, not just the one in my home town.

Recently, when searching through old boxes of books, we found this one:

It’s copyright 2007. It’s a hardcover book, brand new, never read, and I cannot remember buying it. I would not pay $26.95, the posted price, for this book, not now, not in 2007. How it got into my book boxes, without me even knowing it was there, is baffling.

Finally, I just noticed this shoe box in our closet:

I am sure The Woman bought these Ivanka Trump shoes many years ago. She would not do so now. But still, the box is in our closet.

I have to say: Trump’s ghosts are permeating our lives in America. He is a relentless self-promoter, in my opinion the most successful real estate salesman in history, regardless of the fact that his company sure looks like an organized crime syndicate that has now muscled itself into the White House.

We are numb to the ghosts of Donald Trump, which haunt us now, and will haunt us for decades to come. My grandchildren will suffer from some of the effects of Trump in the White House today.

I think we need an exorcism.