1984 in Real Time
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” 1984. George Orwell
A Week of Distortions
“In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
This is about a week of distortions.
I was glancing back at The 1619 Project and rereading the editor’s note at the very beginning of the book in which it discussed the use of the term enslaved as opposed to slave. It argued that the term slave strips individuals of humanity and enslaved does not. So they preferred to reference individuals as “enslaved persons.” It felt to me like they were taking a word and redefining its meaning to fit a cultural narrative.
They went further and stated they did not use terms like plantation or master because those terms are often used euphemistically when conveying certain conditions of slavery. It was distortion, a small twisting of words to fit narratives in ways that convict some and ease the pain of others according to their own ideas and beliefs.
It reminded me of 1984, the way Winston was instructed to make small changes to language to support new narratives so people could forget. In 1984, the changing of words, language, and meaning were mechanical tools used to keep culture in check and align thought with the masses. It was distortion.
Last week, a case went before the Supreme Court of the United States, Little v. Hecox, a case that three teenage girls brought forward after arguing in lower courts that their Title IX rights were violated when the state allowed a boy to participate on the women’s track and field team. This case had gone before lower courts, had been dismissed, and was now before the Supreme Court.
I was initially surprised that the Supreme Court was taking on this case, as I believed the idea that a boy can become a woman or a woman can become a man, or this idea of “trans,” is a lie. But then I understood that this was about the use of a term. The term being gender identity, as if this word trumps biological sex. As if a person could decide they are no longer male or female and consider themselves the opposite sex based on their own gender identity and then argue they are being discriminated against under a law that never considered identity.
What also fascinated me was how the entire court fed into this language and referred to the individual as “she” instead of “he.” That is giving credibility to a lie. This is what Satan did in the garden with Adam and Eve by introducing doubt into the mind. The lie does not begin as force. It begins as suggestion. It begins with language.
This is exactly what 1984 warned about. Language is changed first. Meaning follows. Memory erodes.
Another distortion did not happen last week but was in the news nonetheless. That was the case of Renee Good, the woman who was shot and killed by an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
This is where the law has to play out not totally on facts but on motive.
Renee Good was in her car protesting, blocking traffic, and impeding ICE agents from doing their job. This was a situation that did not have to go to the extreme of Renee Good being shot. Clearly from the video, Renee Good and her wife were impeding ICE’s progress and taunting the officer.
When the officer who was recording the event walked by Renee Good, she said, “I am not mad at you.” Others argue she was being respectful. But showing respect and being respectful are not the same. Her wife, who was also recording, was calling the ICE agent names and antagonizing him, while the officer had not said a single word.
Then two other ICE agents approached Renee’s car, which was parked perpendicular in the road blocking traffic, and they told her to get the “fuck” out of the car. At that point, Renee’s wife attempted to open the door. The officer who was still recording had made his way around to the front of the vehicle.
As the wife grabbed the door attempting to get into the car, Renee backed up. The wife then screamed, “Drive.” At that point, Renee moved forward and struck the officer. We then hear gunshots and a crash as Renee Good’s car hit another vehicle head on.
This was one of the most horrific situations I have ever witnessed.
I do not believe for one second that Renee Good intended to hit the officer. But it does not change the fact that she intended to flee the scene and in that moment rushed and followed her wife’s command. She drove forward and struck the officer. In those seconds, he responded with gunfire. I do not believe he intended to kill her. He believed he was about to be hit by a vehicle and responded accordingly.
This is where distortion enters.
Many Democrats want to believe the officer was violent, aggressive, irrational, and angry and that he shot Renee Good in cold blood. But the video shows a different sequence of events. The aggressive behavior, sarcasm, taunting, and escalation came from Renee Good and her wife. Motive was rewritten after the fact to fit an approved story.
This is where 1984 becomes relevant again.
In 1984, Orwell describes the Two Minutes Hate, a daily ritual where citizens are allowed and expected to act in the most emotional, irrational, and vicious ways. People scream, curse, threaten violence, and lose control. Their hatred is directed toward a designated enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein. The rage is not spontaneous. It is sanctioned. It is encouraged. Afterward, that rage becomes evidence that the Party’s narrative is true.
This is what we see in these protests. ICE agents become the Emmanuel Goldstein figure. Protestors are allowed to act aggressively, viciously, and irrationally toward them. The hatred is projected onto ICE as the embodiment of cruelty and injustice. Then when something tragic happens, the interpretation of events is reshaped to align with the approved narrative. The agent becomes the irrational one. The agent becomes the aggressor. The agent becomes the villain.
Facts come second. Alignment comes first.
This distortion spilled into another narrative about rewriting history, attempted by Pramila Jayapal. Last week she claimed America was built by immigrants and listed India, Mexico, Venezuela, and Africa, while leaving out Descendants of Slaves and Europeans.
Descendants of Slaves were not immigrants. We did not come here by choice. We were brought here as slaves through force and ownership. Our labor built this country. We are not what she is and we do not share the same history.
At the same time, Matt Walsh responded by claiming America was built by Europeans. He also introduced a series titled American History, where he is going to make the case that Americans have been lied to. Part of his argument is to remind people that slavery was not first practiced in America, as if we do not already know and understand that slavery has existed in nearly every society nearly since the beginning of time. And that the institution was eliminated in Europe first and later followed by America.
He is also going to make sure we understand that Europeans were not going to the Ivory Coast kidnapping Africans, but that Africans were sold by their own brothers and sisters. We have acknowledged that fact. We know that history. We also know that Arab slavery was far worse than American slavery, where Black men were emasculated and castrated, particularly those who did not convert to Islam. None of this history is new to us, nor does it absolve what was done in America.
More important Walsh wants to make it clear that European whites weren’t the only enslavers. As if not a single Black person has ever read Edward P. Jones. We know there were Black slave owners, but the reality is they were few and far between. Many Black slave owners purchased family members so they would not be sold into slavery. Large Black plantation owners were anomalies, not the norm, and most lost everything after the Civil War.
It does not deny that the system itself was built and maintained by Europeans. Nor does it erase the 100 years of Jim Crow. The laws, the economy, and the ownership of land and bodies were European controlled.
What Jayapal is doing is lying. What Walsh is doing is whitewashing history to remove a stain of guilt that hovers over white America. In doing so, he wants to argue that our plight was not that bad. Or could have been much worse.
Distort the truth. Rewrite history. That is another warning in 1984. If you can erase memory, tell another story, and repeat it long enough, people will forget what actually happened.
By the end of last week, I was worried. Convinced that America is traveling down paths that are leading to its destruction. In 1984, Orwell warned that the greatest danger to a society is not an external enemy but the slow corruption of truth from within. People blame global events for all our troubles without recognizing the danger that comes from inside our own institutions, our language, and our willingness to accept distortion. We lie about life, sex, love, history, justice, and truth, then pretend we are the arbiters of reality. In truth, many of us are more like the citizens Orwell described, programmed to repeat approved narratives from the left or the right.
Yet there are still some who can see. Those who recognize distortion for what it is and refuse to surrender memory. We are the watchers in the room. We understand both perspectives, but we are not captive to either. We stand on history, memory, and the Word of God, and we name the lie when we see it. That is how alignment remains balanced. That is how truth survives.
That is justice, not distortion.
