Orwell’s ‘1984’ dystopia is happening now
As members of the Trump administration adopt a form of “newspeak” to deny both history and reality, DOGE watches us as it hacks into personal government-stored data.
For many years after I first read George Orwell’s 1949 masterwork, 1984, I leaned eagerly into current events, trying to discern if the writer’s dystopian vision of the future was likely to be realized by the emblazoned “due date.”
Early on, the infamous 1968 line about destroying a Vietnamese village in order to save it seemed to qualify as an example of what Orwell called “doublethink,” by requiring one to hold two contradictory beliefs while accepting both as truth. At the time, I feared such an act of severe cognitive dissonance ominously forewarned of things to come.
Still, when the year 1984 rolled around, American political discourse felt far removed from Orwell’s dire predictions. And then we got Mikhail Gorbachev, “glasnost,” the fall of the Soviet Union, and what Francis Fukuyama optimistically termed “the end of history.” Liberal democracy was spreading everywhere, and we could all just relax.
And yet, here we are today, sunk deep in the mire of doublethink, and of Orwellian dystopia in general.
In 1984, the protagonist, Winston Smith, cites the slogans of the “Ministry of Truth” as “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength,” while bemoaning the eyes of “Big Brother” that pursue you “[o]n coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the wrappings of a cigarette packet — everywhere.”
As members of the current administration adopt a form of “newspeak” to deny both history and reality, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) watches us evermore from the wings with each hack into personal, government-stored data. Compromised news outlets in both print (the Washington Post) and broadcast media (Fox, CNN, and, more recently, MSNBC) fire or reassign their most reliable reporters, skirt important issues, parrot false claims, and distract with filler stories.
In this environment, where is truth?
Thus, war becomes peace when President Donald Trump claims Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin originally called a “special military operation,” was a war initiated by Ukraine. This is like saying Poland invaded Germany to trigger World War II.
As Smith comes to believe in 1984 after having been tortured by the “Ministry of Love,” 2 + 2 = 5.
Freedom becomes slavery as our addiction to “free speech” captures our online attention (a point brilliantly made by Chris Hayes in The Sirens’ Call) and, as often as not, fills it with nonsense.
Ignorance becomes strength when history disappears and congressional actions perform the opposite of what they say they do: “energy independence” embraces inaction, Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) aims to undercut routine health care for seniors and children alike, a tax cut for the ultra-wealthy is sold as a “windfall for low- and middle-income families.”
Although such misnomers are hardly new, the cynicism involved in legislating something quite innocent-sounding that will, in fact, harm people has, I believe, never before been equaled in our country. Just try to picture what “government efficiency” really means to Elon Musk and his minions.
In erasing or manipulating the past, Orwell contends, doublethink is a form of “reality control” that “den[ies] the existence of objective reality.” As Kellyanne Conway once insisted, there are “alternative [meaning imaginary] facts.”
To rewrite history, then, is to be the victor.
In rejecting not just historical facts but other people’s lived experiences, doublethink approaches the emotional abuse of what is now commonly known as gaslighting. In Trump’s first administration, he urged us not to fear COVID-19 or to bother with vaccines; this “flu” would go away soon. So why were so many folks dying? And why should we have concluded, as Trump wanted us to, that death rates would fall if they weren’t reported?
Consider, too, his recasting of the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol Building as a “day of love” — despite the very evidence of the nation’s eyes and ears riveted for hours to their TVs while the drama played out. Do we all have false memories of that day?
As Smith comes to believe in 1984 after having been tortured by the “Ministry of Love,” 2 + 2 = 5.
To rewrite history, then, is to be the victor.
More recently, a reporter asked Trump if he still believed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a dictator, something that had been widely broadcast and commented on just the previous week. Trump responded: “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that. Next question.” Note to history books: Forget those words.
Doublethink is used so frequently that it has become a subject of rebuke, if not ridicule. Whereas Trump and Vice President JD Vance, for instance, echoed Putin’s talking points in their disastrous meeting with Zelensky on Feb. 28, their Republican colleagues on the Hill later spoke with one (obviously prearranged) voice in support of this approach to the Ukrainian leader. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s remark to Fox News about the ill-fated meeting, “I think that Moscow is probably more afraid of Trump than ever,” drew the simple label, “1984,” from one commentator on X.
Meanwhile, “Big Brother” DOGE continues to try to access more and more personal information on everyday citizens and has successfully done so with certain federal agencies, including those guarding individuals’ medical and financial records.
Last week, I sent my 15-year-old granddaughter, who is very aware of and interested in national politics, a copy of 1984, which will certainly shed new light for her on the current state of affairs. We could all do with a little reeducation, while we are still able.
The eyes of DOGE are upon us.
Kathryn Grossman, a Victor Hugo specialist with a keen interest in utopian and dystopian thought, is professor emerita of French at Pennsylvania State University.