1984: A Warning, or Playbook?
News Frenzy, Acknowledging Reality, Thoughtcrime (Opinions), Programmed Hatred, Warnings?
Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.
George Orwell, 1984
I.
News Frenzy
This past weekend, I did something that I am not proud of. But I don’t regret it, either.
I spent nearly 24 hours fixated (and, subsequently, debilitated) on the news coverage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. It started when I arrived home from the grocery store. I went to say hi to my honey when he said, “You won’t believe what happened while you were gone… someone tried to kill Donald Trump.” They. Did. WHAT?
At this point, the video of the shooting was all over the internet. I watched it immediately. And then again. As I was scrolling through the news headlines, they all read, “Apparent assassination attempt.” Apparent? Huh? In the video I just watched, it was quite obvious what had transpired. I watched it a third time for good measure, different angle this time. Any news reporter on the scene with a room-temperature IQ would’ve known exactly what was happening at the moment it was happening. Why did these news outlets use the word “apparent?”
I spent the next 24 or so hours scouring the internet (i.e., 𝕏) for deets. And they kept rolling in. Trump’s last-second head turn. The BBC interview with the orange-hair-visor-guy saying the shooter “bear crawled” up the building. Civilians pointing at the shooter and trying to notify authorities long before the firing began. Elon Musk, Bill Ackman, and Ryan Cohen publicly endorsing Trump. The catastrophic security failure. The apocalyptic security failure. The victim, Corey Comperatore, recognized for his heroic act. The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, appearing in a BlackRock advertisement. The epic Trump photo. The other epic Trump photo. The epic bullet photo. By the end of my social media binge, my brain was indubitably fried.
Apparent attempt. What did they mean by that? Was what I saw in that video (and all over Twitter) not really what happened at approximately 6:10 p.m. EDT on July 14, 2024? Was I missing something?
II.
Acknowledging Reality
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
George Orwell, 1984
Apparently, the “apparent attempt” headline was not the initial headline used by legacy news outlets when covering this historic event. Apparently, the initial headlines used included “loud noises,” “popping noises,” and “Trump falls.” That is, until they were caught red-handed.
Where did these organizations get their information? Did they not have a single reporter on scene to witness this occurrence in real-time? Was no one present to see the first shots fired and, just 45 seconds later, hear Secret Service shout, “Shooter down, Shooter down!”? Did they not see the blood smeared across Trump’s face? After all, a headline with the words “assassination attempt” would’ve garnered way more attention than “loud noises.” This was so out of character for these guys.
I couldn’t help but wonder, was this intentional?
I’ve seen a narrative like this one play out before. Well, actually, I read about it in George Orwell’s 1984. In the dystopian tale, a totalitarian regime called “The Party” controls the West. The book’s main character, Winston Smith, works for a Party-controlled news agency called the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites historical events so that all reporting conforms to the Party’s narrative. If an occurrence does not conform to the regime’s standards, it is immediately destroyed and rewritten.
Could the reporting conundrum have been an attempted act of rewriting truth? Perhaps I’m overthinking things; a classic case of analysis paralysis. But, then again, perhaps not.
CNN’s mission is “To Inform, Engage and Empower the World.” They informed the world that Trump fell.
NBCUniversal claims to be “uniquely positioned to educate, entertain and empower.” They educated us about the popping sounds made by gunshots.
While The Washington Post, who gave us the enlightening story about “loud noises at Pa. rally,” reportedly adheres to several sophisticated news principles. Here’s a few:
The first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth as nearly as the truth may be ascertained.
The newspaper shall tell ALL the truth so far as it can learn it, concerning the important affairs of America and the world.
In the pursuit of truth, the newspaper shall be prepared to make sacrifices of its material fortunes, if such course be necessary for the public good.
Source: The Washington Post
I know what some of you may be thinking: “Jen wants us to pity Donald Trump.” No, that’s not it. You’re missing the point. Trump is aware of the risk of assassination; all candidates are. The point I’m making here is that several legacy news outlets that We The People know and trust have deliberately diluted the truth—so much so as to apparently attempt to alter a significant historical event. One could easily speculate that these organizations colluded to avoid stating the obvious—that this was an assassination attempt on a former President of the United States and a current Presidential candidate. And I can’t help but wonder if they would’ve gotten away with it too, had Elon not bought Twitter.
For your information, I’m politically agnostic. I’m not a fan of Trump, nor am I a fan of Biden. I’m not affiliated with any party and I’ve never voted in a Presidential election.1 But I do respect both of these men who’ve served (and continue to serve) as the President of this fine country, of which I’m proud to be a citizen. I know that I will continue to be a proud American regardless of who is elected this Fall because my pride is not contingent on which old white guy gets to live in the big, shiny White House.
But the coverage we witnessed from some of our most trusted news stations this past weekend gives reason for alarm. Failing to acknowledge reality and tell the truth is not only immoral, it’s doubleplusungood.
III.
Thoughtcrime (Opinions)
People will tell you that things are only going to get crazier. Maybe they will. But they don’t have to. You don’t have to. You can slow down. You can take a breath. You can take back your mind.
Hamish McKenzie, Fight!
Once we’ve acknowledged the reality of a situation, we can then begin forming opinions about it. After all, that’s what our human brains do best—create a subjective reality out of an objective one.
There’s the opinion that the shooting was more staged than “a Tyler Perry production.” Then there’s the opinion that it was a “heavily planned and coordinated” inside job. There’s this call to “make america aim again,” and this assertion that “God saved Trump.” While people have the right to formulate personal opinions—thanks to the First Amendment—it’s important to note that, at the time of this writing, all of these assertions are opinions. Hearsay.
In 1984, any opinion outside of the Party’s official opinion is a crime. A thoughtcrime, to be exact. The Party members within the regime cannot express any opinion that goes against the Ministry of Truth’s narrative. And the worst thoughtcrime of all—a crime in which you were certain to be vaporized—was to have any doubts about the Party and its omnipotent leader, Big Brother.
Today, we have freedom of speech. We have freedom of thought. It is imperative in our tumultuous times that we have access to accurate and unbiased news so we can formulate conclusions for ourselves.
The freedom to choose one’s own thoughts is the ultimate freedom.
IV.
Programmed Hatred
We need to step back and see that this is a product of so much vitriol and so much anger, and when we release that amount of anger into the universe, it inevitably comes back and reverberates with these kinds of consequences.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in response to the assassination attempt
1984 begins: “It was a bright cold day in April… in preparation for Hate Week.” According to the book, Hate Week was an annual Party-mandated holiday in which all Party members were obliged to spew extreme vitriol and hatred toward Emmanuel Goldstein, a former leading Party figure who was now being depicted as the Enemy of the People by the Ministry of Truth. In addition to Hate Week was the daily Two Minutes Hate: a scheduled news broadcast of Goldstein being branded as the defiler of the Party’s purity and the conspirator dedicated to overthrowing the State. All party members were obligated to participate in the ongoing spread of hatred.
On the Fourth of July, my husband went floating down the Truckee River with a few ex-Tesla pals just like they did in the good ol’ days when they all worked together at the Nevada Gigafactory. Hunter parked his truck in downtown Reno earlier that morning to drive everyone back to their launch spot when the float was over. On the drive, he overheard two former colleagues in the back seat jokingly conspiring to take out Donald Trump. While he didn’t interject in their plotting, he found it odd that two successful engineers were so preoccupied with Trump that they were openly discussing how they’d try to kill him if given the opportunity.
Legacy media is so vicious towards Trump that it only makes sense those two engineers were programmed to feel so much hatred towards a former U.S. President who they frankly know very little about. Prominent outlets like the New York Times frequently publish abhorrent stories about him while ensuring the word “opinion” is as miniscule as possible. These opinions are being made to appear as if they are truths. And they’re everywhere.
Orwell warned about this kind of omnipresent hatred. Regarding the ceaseless hate projected towards Emmanuel Goldstein, Orwell writes, “But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day, and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish they were—in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less.”
Donald Trump is no Emmanuel Goldstein, but our media is sure making him out to be. And it’s not a good look. Villainizing and dehumanizing a guy who already served four years as the President of the United States without causing total civilizational collapse leaves me more concerned about the state of media than the state of our nation. In The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale wrote, “We build up the feeling of insecurity or security by how we think. If in our thoughts we constantly fix attention upon sinister expectations of dire events that might happen, the result will be constantly to feel insecure. And what is even more serious is the tendency to create, by the power of thought, the very condition we fear.”2
In the end, all the hate really does is harm the individual and give Trump more power.
V.
Warnings?
In conclusion, I’ll leave you with some additional snippets from 1984 that caught my attention:
Party slogans:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
On freedom of thought:
Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary.
On sex:
The Party was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it… For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force?… The sex instinct will be eradicated.
On war:
The primary aim of modern warfare… is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.
The consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.
On the powers that be:
If the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently—then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.3
Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
Fun fact: George Orwell was not a real person. It’s a pseudonym used by writer Eric Blair.
In my defense, I lived in Maui during the 2016 election (while registered to vote in Florida) and in Copenhagen during the 2020 election
Emphasis my own
The “High” are the people of the “High” caste—the Party rulers.
Journalists use words like allegedly and apparent because they are not there to make an official statement. They are supposed to allow for official sources to do so. Your entire argument is based solely on the word “apparent” as if that means something besides “here’s what we think happened.” Quoting dystopian literature repeatedly is not objective. I’m not buying that you’re objective in the slightest.
I appreciate the reminder to watch for signs that reality is being denied or tampered with, to trust first-hand sources and honor/record events in real time. I also appreciate when major media outlets to hold off on reporting definitively until they have confirmed information. And I REALLY appreciate it when they don't make their initial impressions disappear, but instead post new headlines as our knowledge develops.
Pops startle the crowd before they are confirmed to be gunshots, the president falls before we realize he was tackled in a protective secret service huddle, he is seen to be injured before he was known to have been shot.
I also still believe that, until we truly know the shooter's motives, this looks like an assassination attempt. Having watched many of the same videos and read much the same news and followed the same breathless cycle, it is apparent to me that this was an assassination attempt. I think appearances are correct here, but I don't blame news agencies for hanging a lantern on the fact that there is still so much we don't know.