“The right’s sleep of reason is bringing forth dark, futuristic political thrillers” — science fiction in which Chelsea Clinton is president and terrorists rule Manhattan. For conservatives, such writing is “coping behavior. It’s similar to the tricks some doctors teach young patients who are struggling with cancer or other fatal diseases: They should visualize their maladies. If they picture the tumors ravaging their bodies, they can picture their bodies fighting them off and blasting them into oblivion. Culture war fiction serves the same function.”