WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
You remember these slogans. The pithy precepts of the Party in George Orwell's novel 1984. They are slogans from the Ministry of Truth, which in fact makes up lies disguised as truth to feed the people, and is engaged in a massive project to rewrite history.
As Orwell said, “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”¹ That control comes about by rewriting history to make it more agreeable to the Party's plan for the present and the future.
We
have seen our past rewritten in school textbooks that downplay or deny the ugliness of slavery in America; that recast the
Civil War as an economic struggle rather than a battle for the freedom
of a race; that ignore the violent and extra-constitutional governmental persecution of WWI antiwar protesters; and that carry no mention of the forced
internment of Nisei (American-born Japanese) into concentration camps
during WWII.
In order to sell its disinformation to the public the Party has brainwashed the population with doublethink, the ability to "hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them
to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against
logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that
democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of
democracy, . . ."²
We have witnessed doublethink in the remarks of Donald Trump, who has routinely ascribed to his opponents bad acts that he himself has committed. In his four years as president he has established a personality cult of frightening size, and has instilled doublethink in a great many of them, including several members of Congress. Any time you hear a member of the Executive branch or a Republican member of Congress talk about their devotion to the Constitution, you can bet they're doing something to damage it.
A few Congressional types are now finally saying what I and other bloggers and commentators have been saying for months: The senators and representatives who follow Trump blindly and without question have betrayed their oaths to the Constitution and put Trump in its place. Their mouths proclaim defense of the Constitution but their actions say they are doing their best to negate it.
It's been refreshing today to see a number of Republican representatives actually embracing reality and denouncing Trump during the House impeachment proceeding. But it's been sad to watch several others, clearly affected with doublethink, predictably spew out glib, duplicitous Trumpspeak.
It's sad because their minds have been hijacked. They are themselves, yet they are not.³ They are capable of carrying on perfectly normal conversations until the subject of Trump comes up. Immediately their consciousness opens a different channel. Out comes the Trump praise, the Trump-can-do-no-wrong rhetoric, the denials and the lies.
The really scary part is that I don't think most of them are even aware of it.
They
are frightened. They think they've reached their exalted state thanks
to Trump's blessing, and they will fight ferociously to stay on his good
side. They fear his displeasure and they fear their constituency, who
they know will vote them out if they don't toe the Trump line. Having
tasted the power of being in government they can't bear the thought of
leaving it and will do anything to stay.
It would be easy to simplify this as a class struggle, trailer trash rising up against the elite intelligentsia, but it really isn't that simple. The mob that attacked the Capitol appears to have been a cross-section of American society. I've explored the demographics of Trumptopia, and while its firm foundation is unquestionably low-income, minimally educated white people, such is not its totality. Highly placed professional people and members of Congress and state legislatures don't fit the mold of the base, yet there they are, and they didn't spring up fully formed from America's cultural sub-basement. They come from good homes and good schools and polite society, and they want to overthrow the government of the United States of America.
"How did we get here?" is a question that a lot of Americans are asking. I don't have an answer, but unrepentant educator that I am, I have a suggestion for further reading: "How Did Hitler Happen?" is a concise essay on Hitler's rise to power, published online by The National WWII Museum: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/how-did-hitler-happen
Before you read it I suggest you make a simple side-by-side graph with one side headed "Trump" and the other "Hitler." Then, keeping recent events in mind, see how many commonalities you find and let me know. If you find none, you might want to get yourself tested for the Doublethink virus.
I'll give you one hint: the flag.
Hitler had a flag: Bright red with a central white disc containing a black swastika. Like most highly effective symbols it is simple and bold. Hitler designed it himself to be used as both a flag and a poster. To be precise, this was the flag of the Nazi party, but Hitler and the party were inseparable; moreover, during his incumbency the banner was also the de facto flag of Germany. Germany was Hitler and Hitler was Germany.
Trump also has a flag. There is no "official" design, but it generally fits the pattern of his other campaign literature: His last name, all capitals, in a bold sans-serif font, usually white on a blue field, sometimes with stars. There is no other name, no hint of a running mate. Trump is a solo act.
The point is, there is a flag. Flags proclaim power, dominance, and sovereignty. In constitutional republics no individual, not even the president, has a personal flag.
Hitler's flag became Nazi Germany's flag. Trump wants his brand to be stamped on and flown above the United States of Trumptopia.
Never. We shall never let it happen.
--- Diogenes, 1/13/2021
¹ George Orwell, 1984. (Sorry--I can't find my copy of the book for a full citation; I'm relying on Wikipedia for the quotes).
² Ibid. and ditto.
³ Not quite like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but similar.