Octavia Butler used 'make America great again' in book years before Trump, but she didn't coin phrase

For years, a claim has circulated online that science fiction writer Octavia Butler published a book in 1998 called "Parable of the Talents" about a future Christian fascist president who had just won an election off the back of a campaign in which he used the phrase "make America great again" — a slogan that would later become synonymous with U.S. President Donald Trump's "MAGA" movement.

In early February 2026, for example, a Facebook user wrote (archived), in part:

Octavia Butler is one of my favorite authors. […] Her books, Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, were unfortunately prophetic. This quote is from Parable of the Talents, which was published in 1998. The book is about a Christian Nationalist authoritarian president who ran with the slogan, make America great again and turns the country into a fascist hellscape. Butler died in 2006, before she could see how right she was.

(Facebook user Diana McDermott-Dewey Roston)

Similar iterations of the claim appeared elsewhere on X, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Reddit, while several Snopes readers emailed us to ask if the assertion was true.

In short, Butler did publish a book in which a newly elected president rallied people to his cause by promising them he would "make America great again." Therefore, we rated this claim true. The phrase was inspired by former President Ronald Reagan, who used it while campaigning in 1980. The book, "Parable of the Talents," was published in 1998, almost two decades before Trump adopted the slogan.

Butler's use of MAGA phrase

Butler released two books in her "Parable" series in the 1990s. The first, "Parable of the Sower," was published in 1993 and its sequel, "Parable of the Talents," hit bookshelves in 1998. The former was set in the 2020s, while the latter skipped ahead to 2032.

A 2019 summary of "Parable of the Talents" on Butler's website described the community of the main character's newly founded faith, Earthseed, as providing "refuge for outcasts facing persecution after the election of an ultra-conservative president who vows to 'make America great again.'"

For example, on Page 25 of a 2012 edition of the book published by Open Road Integrated Media, the main character's "current least favorite presidential candidate," a Christian Texas senator named Andrew Steele Jarret, told those of other beliefs:

Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.

Many social media users remarked on the prescience of Butler's books and how they reflected future events. But that alleged foresight was in large part an extension of the attention she paid to the events of her lifetime.

In a 2017 profile of Butler, The New Yorker magazine said she decided her "Parable" books would be her "If this goes on…" story, basing her future dystopia on whether "the forces of late-stage capitalism, climate change, mass incarceration, big pharma, gun violence, and the tech industry continued unhampered."

Butler's use of slogan inspired by Reagan

Butler's personal notes described Jarrett, who became president during the events of "Parable of the Talents," as "a Reagan, young, vigorous, and utterly unencumbered by conscience," according to Gerry Canavan, who wrote a biography of Butler. Canavan said Butler "reserved special contempt" for Reagan in her notes and personal journals. This likely the reason her fictional president promised to "make America great again."

While the phrase appears in the Congressional Record in 1974, when a senator from Washington state claimed that "others may seek to make America great again," it was not used in earnest or as a campaign slogan until Reagan's successful 1980 Republican campaign for president. The National Museum of History credited Reagan as the originator of the slogan, which former Democratic President Bill Clinton and then Trump later used.

Reagan produced the phrase during his 1980 speech accepting the Republican nomination for president. During that speech, while referencing people "of all races, nationalities, and faiths" just as Jarret later would, Reagan said:

It is time to put America back to work; to make our cities and towns resound with the confident voices of men and women of all races, nationalities, and faiths bringing home to their families a decent paycheck they can cash for honest money.

For those without skills, we'll find a way to help them get skills.

For those without job opportunities, we'll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live.

For those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again.

Clinton also used the phrase in 1991 to end his speech announcing his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president: "Together we can make America great again and … build a community of hope that will inspire the world."

Trump adopted the slogan during his 2016 presidential campaign. Its acronym, MAGA, has become synonymous with Trump, his supporters and his policies.

For further reading, Snopes previously addressed the claim that Butler predicted the deadly 2025 California wildfires.