George Orwell’s book, 1984 became public on June 8, 1949. It depicted a country run by Bib Brother and the Party. In the book this was a leftist organization and all readers thought that the threat of government control would be the product of the political left. Orwell described a country in which 15% of the people belonged to the Party and were blindly loyal to it. They didn’t care about the 85%, called proles. Orwell described them, “All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening.”
The Ministry of Truth altered the past and current news so that both the Party member and the proletarian would “tolerates present-day conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison” and will believe that they are well off. But it is important to change the past and the news to protect the inffalibility of Bib Brother. “To change one’s mind, or even one’s policy, is a confession of weakness.”
Reality is in the head and the Party makes the laws of nature.
This was scary enough when reading it back in the 1950’s and 1960’s but it is rapidly becoming reality. I believe that this book is the playbook of Donald Trump. He expects 100% loyalty from everyone, he accepts no compromises or disagreements with what he says or does. He is infallible, in his mind. He has said he is the Chosen One. He even asked the Secretary of the Interior to tellt the Weather Bureau to change its report on a hurricane so when Trump’s said Alabama was in the path of the hurricane, he would appear to be right.
Trump has denied saying things even though he have been recorded. He says something is good when it is bad, such as calling Putin a friend when all know Putin cannot be trusted. Trump is trying to circumvent and disregard laws because he is above the law.
If Trump is reelected, we can be assured there will be more efforts to make himself Bib Brother and turn our democracy into a dictatorship.
In 2008 I wrote an oped column for the midland lpaper in which I charged President George W. Bush as trying to be Big Brother. He favored and signed into law the Patriot Act which infringed on human rights inorder to protect national security. The Republican Party tried to get a marriage amendment passed and have tried to overturn Roe. V. Wade for several decades. Those efforts pale in comparison to what our current president is doing and wants to do. He has resurrected a plan for a police force accountable only to him, reminiscent of Hitler’s Gestapo.
He denies climate change and withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate and has directed the government to do nothing about it. He favors destroying our natural resources for the sake of making money. He has no moral values and treats immigrants seeking asylum with despicable plans. He wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the country or those here from leaving and returning.
The country described in 1984 is becoming a reality and it is no joke. Please get a copy of the book and read it yourself and spread the word about what Trump is doing to our country. Keep in mind too that all those who support him are complicit in this destruction of our democracy.