In many ways, George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian masterpiece, 1984, is a preview of what we can expect if Donald Trump is re-elected president this November. The book depicts a highly repressive society headed by an authoritarian leader, Big Brother. As with Trump, Big Brother’s image is ubiquitous, projected on screens throughout the country. Instead of “Make America Great Again,” Big Brother’s party has three political slogans: “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.”
These slogans, of course, are nonsensical — as are many of Trump’s claims at his many campaign rallies. I recently labored through the transcript of one of those speeches. Here’s a sampling:
“They raided my house in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. They raided. They had no reason to do so.” (Except they found 141 classified documents, most of them “Secret” or “Top Secret.”)
“Biden has implemented a formal policy that illegal aliens who intrude into the United States are granted immunity from deportation.” The Poynter Institute studied this claim and deemed it totally false. In fact, they found that “the U.S. has expelled, removed or returned people out of the U.S. around 3.8 million times under Biden.”
Biden is “the worst president in history.” (In a recent survey, 154 distinguished presidential historians ranked him #14 (two spots above Ronald Reagan); Trump came in dead last.
“If I was guilty of something, you’d know it. The polls were all saying, ‘He’s not guilty. It’s a witch hunt.’ That it is.” In reality, about half the country believes Trump is guilty of the charges against him.
“Remember, Trump was right about everything.” No comment.
Tom Huckin, Salt Lake City
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