George Orwell must be rolling in his grave...

 

... to see (and hear) the state of politics in the USA right now.  American Thinker points out:

In his classic essay "Politics and the English Language," Orwell spoke of the condition where "words and meaning have almost parted company."  If that "almost" is a measure of Orwellian speech, then today's Democrat leaders are beyond Orwellian.  Their words and meaning have parted company entirely ... When politicians and media begin speaking nonsense, it is the symptom of an underlying corruption of political thinking.

. . .

One might say progressives like Nancy Pelosi have become "unhinged," but that would let them off the hook.  It would suggest that they don't quite realize what they are doing.  But what they are doing is the result of crafty political calculation.  They want to tie President Trump with the Capitol violence to the point that he can never run again.  The same political deviousness lies behind suggestions that he should not be in control of the nation's nuclear arsenal because of his supposed mental instability.

None of these charges has anything to do with the truth.  Those most responsible for the Capitol disturbance were those who rigged the presidential election ... But the charges against President Trump are Orwellian in that they invert the truth.  The president argued, as he had every right to do, that the election was rigged, and he urged peaceful protest to defend our republic.

Even the president's calming words on the afternoon of the Capitol break-in have been met with Orwellian reaction.  When President Trump said, "Go home. Go in peace," the media charged him with inciting further violence because he expressed his "love" for his supporters.  That expression of love did more than anything to get them to go home.

In a further Orwellian twist, Biden and his cronies appear to have adopted many of President Trump's ideas for running the country, but they can't admit where those ideas came from.

. . .

The most important line in Orwell's famous essay is this: "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible."  The progressive inversion of the truth is just that: an attempt to defend the indefensible.

If progressives were honest and straightforward, they would be forced to state that they are radical environmentalists and socialists who want government to control the economy and equalize wages; who want socialized medicine for all; who think religious expression should be outlawed; who believe in a universal guaranteed income; who want to outlaw the use of fossil fuels; who want to expand affirmative action putting blacks and Hispanics farther ahead of whites; who believe that any reference to biological sex should be outlawed; who believe that America should be not a global superpower, but merely one nation among others; who believe that abortion at any stage is a universal right; who believe that American aid should go to the Palestinians and not to Israel; and so on.

. . .

The coordinated effort to impeach and convict the president is nothing less than a propaganda campaign, and the associated suppression of free speech on social media and elsewhere is the beginning of a dangerous national decline.  It's not possible to say where it will end, but we must be entirely clear about what is happening.  A progressive government will attempt to further limit free speech, assembly, religious expression, gun rights, access to employment, and other basic liberties.

. . .

Don't think it can't happen here.  It begins with "the defence of the indefensible" — and that is already well underway.

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

It's not only Orwell who saw this coming.  In his novel "Brave New World", Aldous Huxley foresaw psychological manipulation and mental conditioning as tools to reshape society.  The use of language as a tool to accomplish this purpose is something all authoritarian societies have sought to impose on their citizens.  For example, I experienced it at first hand in South Africa under apartheid.  It's profoundly disturbing to see it take hold here in the very cradle of political freedom and individual rights, the United States.  This country, of all countries, was not made for groupthink!

On the other hand, the use of Orwellian language is a pretty useful identifier as to the character and motives of the person or persons using it.  Whenever we see or hear it being used, we can be fairly sure that the ideas being espoused are worthless, and those espousing them are corrupt charlatans.  It's a dead give-away, and has proved to be so among extremists and ideologues everywhere.

Orwell recognized this, of course.  From his concluding remarks in the abovementioned essay:

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

True dat!

It's up to us to counter such spurious language with truth.  There may not be many who will listen to it, or to us, but if we don't, how will anyone learn to recognize the truth amid the barrage of politically correct propaganda that's being unleashed against it, and us?  Those of us who believe in truth will have to build our own platforms to get it out there, in the face of de-platforming and other tactics designed to silence any and all opposition.  If we don't, we have only ourselves to blame.

Peter