The mission of The St. Croix Review is to end the destruction of America by reestablishing the family as the center of American life, restoring economic prosperity to an independent middle class, and reviving a culture of tradition.

Doublethink

Barry MacDonald — Editorial

Hypocrisy is not an adequate description of what Leftists do. Leftists are not embarrassed by hypocrisy. Rather, they exult in double standards. Leftists are wholeheartedly false, as if they are captivated by the lies they tell.

Leftists animate the mobs and individuals who chant slogans, hate the Jews, camp out on campus, vandalize and deface monuments, riot, shoplift, loot, hijack cars, assault, maim, and murder. Protest mixes with criminality to advance an agenda. Hypnotized mobs do the dirty, mindless work of the movement.

Who are the brains of the Left? Who chooses targets, invents terminology, fabricates narratives? Who sets the macabre spectacle in motion? How may we characterize the Leftist mind?

George Orwell’s novel, 1984, is insightful on the propensities and techniques of Leftist thought. Many of Orwell’s observations apply today. In 1984, Orwell wrote that the organizers of the Left are “bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians.” Seventy years later, Orwell remains accurate.

Life in Orwell’s fictional Oceania is dreary and brutal. Everywhere the machinery in buildings is in disrepair. Elevators don’t work. Streets and public squares are drab and barren of artistic flair. Food and drink are bland and vile. Ugliness and poverty are ubiquitous.

In Oceania poverty is not a failure of the Party. Misery is a deliberate policy to enforce hierarchy. The “proles” (proletarians) and the outer party are kept in deplorable conditions, so that the humble should know that they are humble.

In Oceania, a stark polarity between the inner and outer party is drawn. The possible enemies of the state are hunted. The reach of surveillance achieved by the Party is omnipotent. Overt acts of successful rebellion against the Party are impossible.

In Oceania, law does not exist. Beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes are monitored. Subjects submit to demands for absolute obedience. The words and behavior that summon arrest are never explicitly stipulated. People are forced to guess what the Party expects, and to act in conformity without hesitation. Disloyalty is punished with death. People vanish. They are “Vaporized.”

No location is free from observation in Oceania. No casual interchange between people is beyond the grip of the Party. A slight motion of the body, or a brief expression of the face are dangerous. Subjects never know when the eye of the monitor is active. Even words muttered in sleep amid dreams are evaluated. Each hour is taut with anxiety.

No one is safe at home. Children are trained as “Junior Spies,” to assess the loyalty of parents. Spouses are encouraged to denounce their husbands or wives. Fitness instruction is transmitted into living rooms. Participation is mandatory and monitored. Laggards are chastised.

In Oceania, Big Brother is God. He is benevolent, compassionate, wise. He is the source of innovation, prosperity, and well-being. His face is omnipresent on posters and videos. His eyes appear to follow people everywhere to bore into souls.

For the subjects of Oceania, Emmanuel Goldstein is an object of hate. Goldstein is a heretic. In sessions of “Two Minutes Hate” Goldstein is shown on video. Goldstein speaks, and people howl with rage. Subjects hate on a schedule. The frustrations of their meager existence are culled and directed onto Goldstein. Misery is deflected away from the Party.

Big Brother and Goldstein are figureheads. Whether they are fabrications or not is irrelevant. No one knows where they are. They will never die.

In America our big cities declined dramatically in the last four years. People are assaulted on the streets by the criminals whom Leftist prosecutors refuse to jail. Homelessness is a blight in cities governed by Democrats. Millions of illegal immigrants are taking space and services away from Americans in shelters, schools, medical facilities, and hotels.

Leftist prosecutors are not blind to the havoc that results from no-bail policies. They intentionally favor criminals over lawful citizens. Leftist prosecutors, judges, intellectuals, city councilors, CEOs, major bankers, judges and lawyers, tech barons, and university professors are sequestered in comfortable neighborhoods separate from the privations of working-class Americans.

Goods and services are lavished by Leftists onto illegal migrants. Many of the migrants don’t speak English. They will not easily assimilate to American culture. Migrants are ill-suited to prosper in America’s high-tech job market. As long as they receive welfare benefits, illegal migrants lack the incentive to be self-reliant. Leftists pit migrants against the middle and working classes in a struggle for jobs, education, and healthcare. With the non-enforcement of immigration law, the Leftists destroyed the standard of the equal application of American law.

The American media functions as a continuous news loop of spectacle and outrage. The reportage of news, and the panels of pundits, shown by the corporate media, skew data and opinion into vicious race-based narratives.

The coarser aspects of Donald Trump’s personality are utilized. Trump is cast in the role of Emmanuel Goldstein. The news is an endless reel of Two Minutes Hate. Previously, George W. Bush, and even the blandest of Republicans, Mitt Romney, served as Goldstein figures.

In 1984 Goldstein wrote a counter-revolutionary tome. In the tome Goldstein reveals the Party’s technique of mind manipulation.

“Crimestop” is a device of Party self-discipline. Crimestop is a simple method. It is an acquired habit that even children may learn to suppress curiosity. Suspicions and doubts toward Party orthodoxy are stifled before they arise. An instinct is engendered to stop on the verge of dangerous opinions. Subjects are taught not to grasp analogies, not to perceive logical errors, not to understand simple contrary arguments. Loyal subjects learn to fashion a shield of stupidity. They learn “Goodthink.” They are bored or repelled by any idea that hints of heresy. Even intelligent people are capable of Crimestop.

At her confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Jackson Brown said she could not define what a woman is. She “is not a biologist” she said.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez claims to be terrified that a newly-elected President Trump would put her in jail. Simpleminded projection is a signal of Crimestop and Blackwhite.

In the 2024 political season, it is the Democratic party that prosecutes its political opponents. Examples are the four separate prosecutions of Donald Trump, and the jailing of Trump aids: Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, and Allen Weisselberg (Trump’s accountant). An egregious case has emerged in Texas. The U.S. Department of Justice recently indicted surgeon Eithan Haim because Haim exposed the Texas Children’s Hospital for the performance of illegal “gender affirming” surgery on minor children. Haim faces ten years in prison if he is found guilty. Haim is a whistle-blower the Left does not love.

Oceania demands more than a cocoon of stupidity from its subjects. Adherence to orthodoxy must be absolute. A key word is “Blackwhite.” A lie is insolently substituted for the truth in contradiction to obvious fact. Toward an opponent impudence and arrogance are effective weapons. Blackwhite propaganda can batter, embitter, dispirit, and demoralize enemies.

Blackwhite is double edged. Flexibility with facts is required of subjects in Oceania. Objective standards cease to exist. Of his own initiative a subject distorts his perception. He is skillful at the art of self-hypnosis. He bends his mind like Houdini contortioned his body. The inner disciple of Blackwhite demands from a subject the conviction that the truth is whatever the Party says.

When circumstances change, subjects are required to change their minds. What was once white suddenly becomes black. Devotees recognize that black has now become white. With a twist they convince themselves that black has always been black, that black could never have been white, and that black will never again be white. “Doublethink” is a consummate skill. Doublethink is an ability to know the truth, but, to sincerely believe the Party lie.

The outer party members and proles of Oceania tolerate their misery because there are no reliable standards for historical comparison. Winston Smith is the sympathetic protagonist in 1984. He works in the Ministry of Truth. Smith modifies the daily news to conform to Party doctrine. Records and documents contrary to doctrine are put in the tube of the “Memory Hole” to be burned. Once the records are vaporized the only relic of the past that survives is in the memory of people. But Crimestop, Goodthink, Blackwhite, and Doublethink extinguish memory.

The revisionist history of Nikole Hanna-Jones, the 1619 Project, is an attempt to erase and replace authentic American history with racialist propaganda.

In 1984, Orwellian slogans reveal peculiar tricks of the mind:

• War Is Peace
• Freedom Is Slavery
• Ignorance Is Strength

In 1984, the Ministry of Truth manufactures lies. The Ministry of Peace propagates war. The Ministry of Love dispenses force without mercy or justice. The Ministry of Plenty imposes poverty. The Thought Police ceaselessly hunt for people whose opinions offend orthodoxy.

These current American slogans, assertions, and terms have an Orwellian twist:

• Trans Women Are Women
• Gender Affirming Care
• Men Get Pregnant
• Black Lives Matter
• Trump Is Hitler
• Republicans Are Fascist
• Israeli Genocide
• No One Is Above the Law
• Toxic Masculinity
• Diversity Equity Inclusion
• Diversity Is Our Strength
• Green Energy
• Pandemic of the Unvaccinated

I would like to believe that the bulk of unelected Democrats are good-hearted and loyal Americans who are befuddled my Leftist drivel. But a cadre of hardcore Leftists controls the Democratic Party. Leftists lust for power. They aim to crush their opposition.

Leftists accused Supreme Court Justice Brent Kavanagh of gang rape with no evidence. Leftists officials allowed the homes of conservative Supreme Court Justices to be harassed by mobs. A Leftist judge sentenced a 75-year-old grandmother, Paulette Harlow, to two years in prison for praying outside of an abortion clinic. The FBI investigated parents who protested against gender ideology at school board meetings. The FBI investigated Catholics for the practice of Catholicism.

American Leftists practice Goodthink, Crimestop, Blackwhite, and Doublethink.

We must be on guard against rapacious, narcissistic, psychopathic, and sadistic Leftists. Boiled down to its essence, the Leftist agenda amounts to a love of power and destruction. Leftist want to tear America down, and to watch America burn.

George Orwell, in 1984, paints a dark society: “. . . Imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”

Thank God that Leftists don’t possess the dominance in America that they do in 1984. God is nowhere in the pages of 1984. As clever and vicious as Leftists are, they cannot extinguish God. Americans cherish and love truth, justice, self-reliance, and prosperity. America will be exceedingly difficult to conquer. Too many Americans genuinely love God.    *