Oct.31

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Today in Dystopia: Putting the "New" in NewSpeak

There are two sentences from George Orwell's 1984 that are remembered above all others. The first is the opening sentence: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." And the other is this: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

We note Donald Trump's affinity for the 1950s above, and now we must note his and his underlings' apparent desire to also re-create 1984. Not the actual year, of course, but the year as envisioned by the book (which, by the way, was published just before the start of the 1950s, specifically August 1949). The current leadership of the country is certainly known to indulge in frequent gaslighting. But this week, there were three particularly egregious examples, and we thought it was appropriate to pause and note them, as a reminder that this is not normal:

• Government Control: Mike Johnson, who gets to stay in power as long as he stays in Trump's good graces, has certainly become an experienced user of NewSpeak. This week, however, he uncorked a statement that was so outlandish that it sent people running to the fact-checking and urban legends sites to confirm that it was fake. But it wasn't fake.
  
  What happened is that, on Monday, Johnson was in the middle of one of the press briefings he has been conducting daily, primarily to explain why the House is still in recess, and to blame the Democrats for the shutdown. Maybe he had a really good weekend or maybe he drank a bit too much coffee, because he pursued the second task with particular verve on that day, declaring:

  The Democrats are required to open the government. They keep saying Republicans are in charge of the government. We aren't. Not in the Senate. Sixty votes control the Senate, not a bare majority.

  Readers of this site know enough to understand what he was going for; he was trying—in sound-bite form—to blame the Democrats for not invoking cloture in the Senate, ideally without using the wonky word "cloture," and he did a lousy job of it. That said, even if we accept that, to quote Alan Greenspan, "I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant," it's still aggressive and dishonest spin. The suggestion that the Republicans are somehow helpless here could not be further from the truth. They are free to: (1) negotiate or (2) kill the filibuster. If they choose not to do either of those things, then that is their choice, but it's on them.
  
  
• Secretary Javert: There has been a great deal of focus on how mentally unwell Donald Trump is. There has been virtually no focus on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's mental health, presumably because she's younger and is not, you know, the president. However, maybe this is something that people should be talking about. She says and does a lot of nutty things, things that go beyond just the usual political theater. Also—and we would not be doing our job if we did not put all the available evidence on the table—she does have crazy eyes.
  
  Like Johnson, Noem meets with the press every day. In her case, her job is to explain how everything she and her department are doing is perfectly legal, and anyone who says otherwise is a godless commie. On Thursday, she looked at reporters, and with a straight face, decreed:

  There's no American citizens that have been arrested or detained. We focus on those that are here illegally. And anything that you would hear or report that would be different than that is simply not true and false reporting.

  Do you think she really believes that? She's so far removed from reality, she actually might. Is there anyone else on the planet who believes that? We doubt it. Even if a person believes in the really harsh MAGA approach to immigration, surely they would concede that in any operation like this, at least a few innocents are going to get caught up in the net. Right?
  
  
• Nobel Laureate: This is probably the most bizarre of the three, and it comes from Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, though it was propagated by Trump himself. As it turns out, it's not such a big deal that Trump did not win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending every war in the world, because... he's already got a Nobel. Here is the message Trump sent out yesterday:

  Chris Wright: "A former Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientist won the Nobel Prize in physics for work in Quantum physics. Quantum computing, along with AI and Fusion, are the three signature Trump science efforts. Trump 47 racks up his first Nobel Prize!!"

  It is true that this year's Nobel—in Physics—was awarded to three scientists for their work laying the foundation for quantum computing. It is similarly true that one of them, John Clarke, was affiliated for many years with Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. However, presidents don't get to "share" Nobels won on their watch; Dwight D. Eisenhower, to take one example, is not a Nobel Laureate in Literature just because Ernest Hemingway won the prize in 1954. That is doubly true here since, as The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences pointed out in their press release announcing the award, the work that earned the prize was done in 1984 and 1985. So, at best, it's Ronald Reagan who is now a Nobel laureate, not Trump.

We know, we know, this sort of fantastical stuff is par for the course for MAGA. But these were just so over the top, even for them, that we just had to take note. Meanwhile, if Trump were to start selling a branded watch that included thirteen-o-clock, he might really be on to something. That would be a great stocking stuffer for MAGA and non-MAGA alike. (Z)