post election

I have been thinking a lot after reading Orwell’s 1984– even though it's the one thing you're not supposed to do in that story. Though it was written in 1949, 75 years ago, I noticed many unnerving similarities to our current government.

If you haven't read 1984, it is set in a dystopian London, the capital of the superstate Oceania, which is constantly at war and never has enough food to go around. But what makes life in Oceania so uniquely terrible is that privacy doesn’t exist.  Every part of life is monitored, and even the slightest deviations or thoughts against the government mean certain death.  Even talking in your sleep is grounds for being arrested.

There are many things that I could compare, but I value your time so I will use the example of “doublethink”  and “MAGA”.  In 1984, “doublethink” is the practice of having two contradicting ideas in your head at once and accepting both of them if that’s what the government wants.  In one of the first scenes, this is demonstrated when the main character Winston (who is secretly opposed to Oceania’s leader, Big Brother) listens to a lunchtime announcement: 

“There had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be REDUCED to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours?  Yes, they swallowed it.” 

“MAGA” is similar to doublethink, in that MAGA fans keep supporting President Trump no matter how many times he lies to them.  He told his followers that prices would go down from his tariffs. They went up.  Trump called his own followers greedy for “wanting more than three dolls”.  He called the high prices Biden’s fault.  None of this was true, and yet, none of it matters to people using MAGA thinking.

In both Oceania and the U.S, we are both told we are the strongest country of the world, but at the same time, a delicate tower of cards that will fall apart if the enemy of the week gets a foothold. Our leaders constantly contradict themselves to get what they want at the moment, and the exhausting mental gymnastics forced upon Trump supporters is similar to the life people must live in Oceania.

The warning of 1984 is to not let objective reality become something easily changeable. “Reality is inside the skull,” says Party boss O’Brien to Winston.  Every day Trump and other politicians push us to ignore our sense of reality more and more. Politicians typically used to put some effort into hiding lies, which doesn't seem to happen anymore.  When emotion overcomes objective reality (the goal of“doublethink”), we will be unable to free ourselves from the current “priests of power”.  When that time comes, war will be peace, freedom will be slavery, and ignorance will be strength.