Thinking Double

 

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

These iconic words from George Orwell's 1984 explain the effects of propaganda on the people. In a book about Adolf Hitler, Walter C Langer said this about Hitler's strategy.

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

 I remember reading 1984 when I was younger and being exposed to the concept of doublethink he introduced in the book--the state of accepting two contradictory statements as simultaneously true and experiencing no cognitive dissonance from it. I observed how multiple times throughout the book, the masses are told clearly false things and are expected to believe them. Winston Smith, the protagonist, seems to be virtually the only person who doesn't just immediately swallow the lies. At the time I rejected this as implausible--surely people can't be that gullible. And yet, here I find myself in 2025 and I observe a huge chunk of the population doing just that.

Trump says that Portland is war-torn with fires everywhere, it's like living in hell. And yet I've seen footage of what's happening in Portland. People walk and jog down the street, seemingly enjoying a normal peaceful life. I see protestors taunting ICE agents by holding up donuts tied to the end of a stick. I see people holding dancing concerts outside ICE buildings, dressed in street clothes or in animal costumes and just having a good time. The truth couldn't be farther from the words coming out of Trump's mouth. And yet his supporters believe him.

He told the same lies about the ICE protests in LA. He used his lies to justify sending the National Guard and marines to the city despite the Mayor of LA and governor of California urging him not to because they knew it would only escalate the situation. I wrote at greater length about this in a previous post. I sent that post to all my siblings and my parents. Most of my siblings didn't respond. My parents called. My dad has been radicalized since I was young, and I knew he believed Trump's lies during Trump's first term in office, so it was no surprise at all to me to learn that he believes Trump's lies now as well. What did surprise me is that my mom also sided with Trump, defending his actions and justifying them. I was shocked to see her taking his side because she's always been the more reasoned and moderate of the two. I don't recall ever hearing her defend Trump before, so I suppose it hurt to hear her defending him now. She talked to me as if I was crazy for suggesting that Trump's actions amount to authoritarianism. I will never accept that I am crazy for seeing and acknowledging the truth in the face of the lies told by the government.

The point is, I personally know and love many people who have bought into the lies. They are committing doublethink. They are rejecting the evidence of their eyes and ears because Dear Leader is telling them to. Trump said that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs. This was not true. He said that he would bring down the price of eggs on day one of his second term. They have only increased since he took office. His supporters still believe he's magically making the economy better even though he's failed to live up to his campaign promises and he has only devastated the economy and ruined relations with other countries due to his childish and outlandish tariffs. 

He has declared Antifa to be a terrorist organization. Antifa isn't even an organization at all. There's no leader, there's no board of directors, there's no centralized agenda or meetings or membership or anything of the sort. It simply doesn't exist. And yet his supporters believe that it is a terrorist organization because Trump has declared it to be. In 1984, the Party made up the fake organization called The Brotherhood which was allegedly a rebellious organization which was intent on bringing down the Party. They'd display fake messages from Goldstein, the alleged leader of this fake organization, during Hate presentations. It worked as a unifying force among the people, to increase their loyalty to the Party and increase their hatred of anyone who opposed the Party in any way. Trump is doing precisely that same thing here with Antifa and it's glaringly obvious, almost as if he took the idea straight out of Orwell's book and decided to implement it as-is. The frustrating thing is that it's working. People believe that Antifa is an organization. They believe it's a real thing and it is a terrorist group.

Meanwhile, ICE officers are committing actual acts of terrorism all over. They tear families out of their apartments  in the middle of the night and leave them out in the cold for hours. They zip-tie children's hands together. They separate parents from children. They kidnap people off the streets wearing unmarked clothing and face coverings and haul them off in unmarked vehicles. The lack of paperwork indicating where people have ended up to me is a clear sign that they are actually a human trafficking organization. And yet Trump's supporters support what ICE is doing because they believe Trump's lies that ICE is getting rid of only the most violent criminals. In reality, ICE is arresting, detaining, and deporting US citizens, peaceful immigrants, and people who are here legally in addition to people who are here undocumented. They may be arresting some criminals, but that is not who they are targeting. They are targeting people who look different. They're racially profiling people by their skin color. 

I have to admit younger me was wrong when I dismissed the possibility of doublethink working. It works all too well. People are all too willing to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears and blindly follow the words of the leader they worship and admire all while that leader is oppressing them and controlling them with an ever tightening fist. Trump has even grown so bold that just the other day he openly admitted during a press release that he is ending freedom of speech. In his exact words "We took the freedom of speech away." And I have witnessed his supporters defending this statement. They love him for making that declaration. It is absolute insanity. It is doublethink. It is denying the evidence of your eyes and ears because the Party told you to.