When Life Imitates Fiction

Kamala Harris is President Coin from the Hunger Games

Dear Reader,

We are mere days away from the presidential election and I can’t help, but feel like we’re living in the real life version of the Hunger Games. I’m not the first to make this comparison. Last May, when the rich and famous dressed in extravagant, dystopian-themed costumes at the Met Gala in New York during a time when student protests for Gaza were at their height and Israel was intensifying bombings on schools and hospitals, social media users were quick to draw comparisons to the fictional world of the Hunger Games. And now, I feel the comparison to the fictitious dystopian world is relevant once more with the upcoming election.

In Suzanne Collins’ popular YA franchise, young people fight against an oppressive regime that uses wealth, class, and ostentatious clothing to distract people from reality and social ills.  In the third installment of the book, Mocking Jay, President Alma Coin who is the leader of the rebellion, adopts the same type of tyrannical tactics she pled…