Beware the Thug’s Vengeance

Please note: I am shifting my blog-site to Substack and you can follow me at cynthiacolemanemery.substack.com.

George Orwell’s book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was published 77 years ago, and still offers prescient insight into the human condition. 

And while the book was required reading when I was a high school student in Britain, I imagine thousands of students across the globe sweated over term papers that ask them to analyze how a book written in 1949 illustrates contemporary malfeasance in government, causing harm to its citizens.

Orwell’s insights are brilliant.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has been translated into more than 60 languages (including Russian, where the motherland banned the book until 1988), Orwell’s jargon crept into everyday English patois: we adopted terms like DoubleSpeak, which refers to inverted notions such as, “War is Peace,” and “Ignorance is Strength.” 

Google found more than 1.5 million instances of “DoubleSpeak,” and, not surprisingly,  the term has become synonymous with political speech.

For example, staff working for the convicted felon steering the United States lapse into DoubleSpeak bigly. 

Political DoubleSpeak

The US president’s falsehoods are so fabulous (as in fable-based) they invite shock but seldom awe. 

Did news readers really believe Trump’s claim that attendance at his first inauguration was in the millions?

While CNN put the crowd size at about one-third that of outgoing president Barack Obama’s, Trump’s associate, Kellyanne Conway, publicly tossed off the “millions” claim in DoubleSpeak as an “alternative fact.”

In response, reporters posted text and photos revealing the true crowd size, and the president’s response was to shame the messenger, calling the coverage “Fake News.”

It takes no talent to wrap mediated fibs with a cloak and call it “Truth Social.” All it takes is an act of inversion: just reframe the lie.

Mask your plan with its opposite.

Equity means bowing to liberals.

Gender means ideology.

ICE killings protect citizens.

Lies are truth.

Rewriting History

The DoubleSpeak that work will set you free—Arbeit Macht Frei—was emblazened on concentration camp entrances during Hitler’s regime. 

Orwell’s protagonist (Winston Smith) worked for the Ministry of Truth, which was responsible for revising history to reflect the Party’s ever-shifting ideologies.

The two Trump administrations have rewitten history and, in some cases, removed history altogether.

They put their dogma into practice with an executive order called, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” in March, 2025.

Language in the order reads like a page from Nineteen Eighty-Four, where Orwell’s Ministry of Truth was “involved with news media, entertainment, the fine arts and educational books.

Let’s go down the list:

The convicted felon-in-charge controls his own social media network and forged ties with select news organizations and their corporate owners, resulting in positive (rather than critical) coverage of the White House: most notably, Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post. 

Turning to media entertainment, writers, actors and comedians who critique the dictator have faced firings and other forms of punishment: most notably, Jimmy Kimmel.

As for the fine arts, the dictator, his staff and his elected lackies stripped funding from government-funded arts programs throughout the country while assuming control in 2026 of the private and federally funded Performing Arts Center in Washinton, DC, which was named for John F. Kennedy: most notably, the dictator added his own name to the Center (prioritizing his name before Kennedy’s).

Just like Nineteen Eighty-Four, the current administration attempts to replace education with propaganda and erasure.

Over the past year, historical artifacts have been altered or removed, particularly reminders of forced labor, slavery and murder of blameless victims.

Projects that promote equality have been torn down (including signage at George Washington’s historical home in Philadelphia), while the world’s largest educational institution, the Smithsonian, had historical objects confiscated.

“NBC News went inside the [National Museum of African American History and Culture] and found at least 32 artifacts that were once on display” were “removed” in May.

Items included “Harriet Tubman’s book of hymns filled with gospels” and the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” the “memoir by one of the most important leaders in the abolition movement.”

Note the mission of the Smithsonian is “to increase and diffuse knowledge through its range of programs and research centers for history, art, science, and more.”

Synopsis

When I read the City of Philadelphia sued the US Government for removing texts about slavery at the historical site at Washington’s home, I thought of the action as a sign of resistance.

Governor Josh Shapiro told radio station WHYY: 

“Donald Trump will take any opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history.” He added:

“Those displays aren’t just signs—they represent our shared history, and if we want to move forward as a nation, we have to be willing to tell the full story of where we came from.”

How reassuring to hear citizens and elected officials have the courage to condemn the lies and deception.

We are missing the stories of workers who, instead of ripping off signs with a crowbar and throwing them in a truck (as WHYY reported), refuse to carry out orders.

Instead we learn that:

Someone removed the signs.

Someone took the artifacts from the museum.

Someone erased references to Climate Change on the government website.

Someone murdered Renee Nicole Good.

Someone killed Alex Pretti. 

Thanks for listening.