Tony Keller, writing in The Globe and Mail:
Orwell’s fictional society was deliberately made stupid and obedient by its rulers’ linguistic engineering. To limit freedom of thought, they limited language. Inventing new words while eliminating others made it impossible to name or think the wrong sorts of things.
As one of the ruling party’s slogans put it: “Ignorance is strength.”
Donald Trump is not Big Brother, but he is something Orwell would have recognized. The U.S. President’s ideal day involves endless monologues followed by an overnight of serial tweeting. His statements are mostly insults and put-downs, designed to provoke not thought, but feeling – ideally ill feeling. Like Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate.
Mr. Trump is a symptom of decaying democratic politics, as well as its agent.