She’s the author of best-selling novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which has been adapted as a critically acclaimed TV series.
And on Sunday Margaret Atwood hit out at US President Donald Trump, saying he ‘acts’ as if he cares about the American white lower class.
The 78-year-old – whose career-defining work focuses on a fictional totalitarian regime – told The Weekend Australian she believes Trump rose to power by appealing to the same group of people Hillary Clinton infamously labelled as ‘a basket of deplorables’.
‘He doesn’t care about them or anybody else’: The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood (pictured) says Donald Trump pretended to care about the American white lower-class to win presidency
‘He acts as if he sees them,’ the author told the publication on Sunday.
‘He doesn’t care about them or anybody else. He was quite willing to sign a healthcare law that would have excluded those very people.’
Margaret told the publication that the unique workings of socioeconomic classes in the US played a hand in Trump becoming the ‘ruler of the Western world’.
‘The way class works in America is that a middle-class, reasonably affluent black person will look down upon a white trash person,’ she said.
And while Margaret admitted that has been true for some time, she said so-called ‘white trash’ grew tired of being viewed as the bottom of the pile.
‘He acts as if he sees them’: The 78-year-old (pictured) – whose career-defining work focuses on a fictional totalitarian regime – said she believes Trump rose to power by appealing to the same group of people Hillary Clinton infamously labelled as ‘a basket of deplorables’
Hitting out: ‘He (Trump) was quite willing to sign a healthcare law that would have excluded those very people,’ Margaret said
‘The way class works’: Margaret told the publication that unique workings of socioeconomic classes in the US played a hand in Trump becoming the ‘ruler of the Western world’
The Handmaid’s Tale’s themes of gender inequality and sexual slavery has seen a number of anti-Trump supporters adopt the story as a symbol of their movement.
Trump critics – outraged by his previous sexist remarks and attempts to cut abortion clinic funding – have drawn similarities between Margaret’s novel and reality, The Weekend Australian reported.
Protesters have dressed like handmaids in state capitals, while others have marched with banners saying: ‘Make Atwood fiction again’.
The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a dystopian American future ruled by right-wing Christians, who force women to dress like handmaids and enter constant reproduction.
Symbol: The Handmaid’s Tale’s themes of gender inequality and sexual slavery has seen a number of anti-Trump supporters adopt the story as a symbol of their movement