Doublethink is common.
by Victor Davis Hanson
In George Orwell’sallegorical novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the picture of “Big Brother”appears constantly in the adoring media.
Perceived enemies are everywhere — supposedly plotting to undo thebenevolent egalitarianism of Big Brother. Citizens assemble eachmorning to scream hatred for two minutes at pictures of the supposedpublic traitor Emmanuel Goldstein. The “Ministry of Truth” swears thatthe former official Goldstein is responsible for everything that goeswrong in Oceania.
In Orwell’s Oceania, there is a compliant media that offers “Newspeak”— recycled government bulletins from the Ministry of Truth.”Doublethink” means you can believe at the same time in two oppositebeliefs.
America is not Oceania, but some of this is beginning to sound a little too familiar.
We see Barack Obama’s smile broadcast 24/7, in a fashion we have notseen previously of earlier presidents. A Newsweek editor referred toObama as a “god.” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews claimed physical ecstasy whenObama speaks. A Washington Post reporter swooned over Obama’s “chiseledpectorals.”
Former President George Bush— our new Emmanuel Goldstein — remains a daily target of criticism.Diplomats continue to discuss the need to hit a “reset” button thatwill erase the past. Last week, the president said those in the pastadministration caused our present problems — and so should keep quietand get out of his way.
Bush is somehow culpable for the newly projected $2 trillion annualdeficits. Bush caused the new unemployment levels to soar to nearly 10percent. Bush’s war on terrorism failed. Bush is responsible for themost recent trouble abroad with Iran, the Middle East, North Korea andRussia.
There are similar Big Brother attacks on recent critics of the Obamaadministration’s health-care initiatives. Once-praised dissent hasbecome subversive. Protestors are a mob to be ridiculed by thegovernment as mere health-insurance puppets. Sen. Barbara Boxer,D-Calif., is suspicious of the nice clothes the protesters wear.Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., used a few isolatedincidents to claim that the health care dissidents are “carryingswastikas and symbols like that” to compare Obama and Democrats to theNazis.
At a meeting with Democratic senators, Obama’s deputy chief of staff,Jim Messina, urged them to “punch back twice as hard” against thesecritics, according to two people who were in the room. An officialpresidential Web site now asks informants, in Big Brother style, tosend in e-mails and Internet addresses that seem “fishy” in questioningthe White House health-care plans.
Doublethink is common. Presidential sermons on fiscal responsibilitytip us off that deficits will soar. Borrowing an additional trilliondollars to manage health care is sold as a cost-saving measure. Racialtranscendence translates into more racial identity politics, reflectedboth in rhetoric and presidential appointments.
The government wants to determine how some executives should be paid.The administration assures millions of citizens it will now intrudeinto everything from buying homes and cars to how they go to thedoctor.
If some Americans chose to purchase a roomy gas-guzzler rather than anuncomfortable but more efficient compact car, a kindly Big Brother willnow “correct” that bad decision and buy the “clunker” back. If webought a house for too much money, the government will assure it wasnot our fault and redo the mortgage. If our doctor wants to conduct aprocedure, a government health board will first determine whether it iscost-effective and in the collective interest.
Despite the absence of another 9/11-like attack, we are still told bythe new terrorism czar, John Brennan, that the old war was largely aBush failure. Administration officials keep inventing euphemisms. Somehave dubbed the war on terror “an overseas contingency operation.”
We were once told that military tribunals, renditions, the Patriot Actand Predator drone attacks in Pakistan were George Bush’s assault onthe Constitution rather than necessary tools to fight radical Islamicterrorists.
Not now. These policies are no longer criticized — even though theystill operate more or less as they did under Bush. Guantanamo is stillopen, but no longer considered a gulag. The once-terrible war in Iraqdisappeared off the front pages around late January of this year.
George Orwell, a man of the left, warned us that freedom and truth arenot just endangered by easily identifiable goose-stepping goons injackboots. More often he felt that state collectivism would come froman all-powerful government — run by a charismatic egalitarian,promising to protect us from selfish, greedy reactionaries.
Orwell was onto something.