The American Spectator
. . . "The scary part of the next several years is that once the empty suits or dresses have been discarded, the Newsoms or the AOCs, someone will emerge who can win hearts as well as votes." . . .
"Some complain that “Orwellian” has become the most overused phrase in current political discourse, but I beg to disagree. Although George Orwell succumbed to tuberculosis — and perhaps political despair — at the age of 46, some 75 years ago, his characterizations of our political condition have never been more apposite — and more chilling.
"In a world in which violent fascists cloak themselves in the name Antifa, one can readily picture the pigs in Animal Farm, indistinguishable in the end from human tyrants. In a world in which the murders and rapes of October 7 are celebrated on American university campuses, or when young New York voters reject the memory of 9/11 to elect as mayor a radical Islamist, we see inversions of truth and decency that Orwell predicted throughout his mature work, most notably in 1984.
" 'War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.” Not far removed, then, from “women’s reproductive health” or “gender-affirming care,” to take only a handful from among dozens of contemporary leftist deceits. It’s not hard to imagine what Orwell would have made of Mamdani, AOC, and the so-called “Democratic” Socialists of America, and easier still to picture the contempt he would have had for the Schumers and Sanders and Newsoms. One suspects that Orwell might not have much cared for Trump, but he would have clearly seen through the humbuggery of the Democrats.
"None of Orwell’s insights, however, are as relevant to our present political moment as his construct, in 1984, of the “Two Minutes Hate.” In the novel’s dystopian universe, the citizens of Oceania are subjected on a daily basis to terrifying images of the countries enemies, transmitted into every home, office, and public place through “telescreens,” devices that combine the function of televisions with that of electronic surveillance devices, a disturbing anticipation of today’s various technologies (the extent to which our various monitors have become monitoring devices must be a subject for another essay).
"Central to this image bombardment is the figure of Goldstein, understood by all to be the traitorous figure behind every assault on every citizen’s well-being. In Goldstein, Orwell evokes not only the antisemitism of Hitler and the Nazis, but also that of Stalin’s regime in Soviet Russia. Still, the figures portrayed in the “Two-Minute Hate” go far beyond anti-Jewish tropes, embracing, from one day to the next, everything likely to stir fear and anger among the “everyman” audience." . . .
James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. He’s just published his new novel, The Zebras from Minsk, the sequel to his well-received 2022 thriller, Letter of Reprisal.
The One Thing Democrats Will Never Try To ‘Get’ Trump . . . "In many ways, the monster that the left claims Trump to be is one of their own creation.
"When he first ran for president, Trump had a long history of liberal positions on issues, and was more critical of Republicans than Democrats. He sided with the left on the Iraq war, praised Britain’s national health insurance, promised never to touch Social Security and Medicare, etc.
"But instead of seeing an opportunity, the left treated Trump with unrelenting hostility, and many high-profile establishment Republicans declared they’d never vote for him. But some conservatives made it clear that they were willing to work with Trump, make staffing recommendations, offer policy help, and so on." . . .
