So says the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984. Similarities between the political sci-fi masterpiece and today's "Trump unreality" are hard to miss, and have been remarked upon by many observers.
"Donald Trump is a constant liar. If his lips are moving, he's lying." -- Buster Gammons
Excerpts from "Up is Down," by David Barstow in the NewYork Times, 1/29/17. Full article linked here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/politics/donald-trump-truth.html?_r=0
Even jaded connoisseurs of Oval Office dissembling were astonished over the past week by the torrent of bogus claims that gushed from President Trump during his first days in office.
But for students of his business career, there was much about his truth-mangling ways that was familiar: the false statements about seemingly trivial details, the rewriting of history to airbrush unwanted facts, the branding as liars those who point out his untruths, the deft conversion of demonstrably false claims into a semantic mush of unverifiable "beliefs."
In innumerable interviews over the years, Trump glibly inflated everything from from the size of his speaking fees to the cost of his golf club memberships to the number of units he had sold in new buildings. In project after project, he faced allegations of broken promises, deceit or outright fraud, from Trump University students who said they'd been defrauded, to GTrump condo buyers who said they'd been fleeced, to small-time contractors who said Trump fabricated complaints about their work to avoid paying them.
In Trump's first interview as president, David Muir of ABC News asked him, "Do you think your words matter more now?"
"Yes, very much," Trump said.
Then Muir asked Trump, "Do you think that talking about millions of illegal votes is dangerous to this country without presenting the evidence?"
"No, not at all," he replied. "Not at all, because many people feel the same way that I do."
I believe that is doublethink, or maybe Newspeak. Possibly both.
No comments:
Post a Comment