It was the 21 of Trumpuary, and the TikTok struck Trump o’clock, as The Ministry of Information had quietly recalibrated its algorithms.
In DC, as a frigid wind blew, a mean little man, The Leader, sat scowling beneath his lofty hair weave for his coronation, surrounded by his Thought Police. These, his most favored, were the men who controlled the algorithms for the applications on the proletariat’s pocket-phones, so that The Leader’s messages to ignore one’s own eyes and ears would become an unavoidable pulsing thrum from their information feeds, and BADTHINK messages from dissidents would get drowned out.
The Leader’s closest loyalists had already pre-prepared his orders for a four-year Hate Week, nearly a hundred of them. There was a decree against the Gender Traitors, those who denied The Administration’s demand that everyone declare gender binary, as the gender binary is vital to the state determining who is an incubator and who is a he-man, who is favored and who is not.
There was declaring Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility to be replaced with Homogeny, Insularity, and some people more Equal before the law than others. The binary isn’t just for gender, there is Him and His People, untouchable, and then there is everyone else, the foreigners, the thought enemies, the bad women, the womanish men, the underclass cursed with physical disabilities and/or melanin, to be beholden to the law and not protected by it. There must be hierarchy, Alphas and Epsilons.
Most of the orders were declaring who were the New Enemies of The Administration. Foreigners, of course, and foreigners now means even some people who were born here, or even companies who were headquartered in the US that The Leader had decided were foreign anyway. And then there are EXTRA foreigners, Cartels, Alien Enemies. He declared a national emergency, to do away with due process, and prepared to build special jails for them.
Other new enemies were the traitors inside The Administration, those who might be tempted to cling to the Old Laws and Customs. Their security clearances were revoked, and He set in place the means to fire those suspected of thoughtcrime against Him. He ordered released his imprisoned army, pardoning the 1,500 or so of his most violent cultists — hostages, he called them — whom he’d directed to lay siege to the Capitol four years before, beating and bear-spraying police officers in an attempt to lynch The Leader’s traitorous Vice President. He did not need the majority of the army’s soldiers to serve for his vengeance, then or now. Just a violent, lawless few who put their loyalty to Him above every other human concern.
Other new enemies are traitors outside the country, such as the World Health Organization, which might contradict The Leader’s decrees on the science of pathogens, afflictions or fluoride, and challenge his divine sovereignty and wisdom in the manner of managing such things.
Also environmentalism, as the loyalty of his band of oligarchs depends on their ability to enrich themselves with natural resources. It would be BADTHINK to suggest that the actions of him or his people could make the climate hostile to humanity or cause burning and flooding, GOODTHINK that the effects of climate change were due to the work of lesbian firefighters, or Democrats with a weather machine, or some other traitors who are both insidiously clever with superhuman abilities, and weak and incompetent at the same time. Also the Leader’s hate for environmentalism was personal, as it would not do to have a king crapping in a low-flow gold toilet. He gave his favorite oligarch his own government agency, to keep him busy and close at heel during the rare times he was not janked on ketamine, shitposting racist conspiracy theories and playing video games.
Trade partners became new enemies too, there shall be an External Revenue Service for them. And China, Mexico, Panama, Canada, just call the rest of the world all Eurasia now, and the US is at war with it.
Names and language are also highly important. Mount Denali shall be Mount McKinley. The Gulf of Mexico shall be The Gulf of America. In all matters, the people must worship the dominance of white men.
The Leader had no need to declare enemies of the elite’s news media. The proletariat was too busy to read news anymore anyway, and most news written by the few remaining paid reporters sat behind mighty paywalls, while His propaganda flowed freely. For the rare few who still pay for the New York Times, Politico, The Los Angeles Times or The Washington Post, the owners and editors had already made public and private shows of their fealty, and their writers knew better than to ask what angles to take. You did not see the Nazi salute that you just saw. The Leader’s already infinite wisdom somehow grew even more in his absence. He is a man who does not take no for an answer, ambitious, expansionist, lofty, transformative, this time he knows how to get it done.
There was rewriting history, yanking the portrait of the General who called him “fascist to the core” and a “wannabe dictator” from the walls. Rewriting history books, so that no one would know about slavery or segregation and become tempted to make heroes of those who fought against those things, and banning books from schools and libraries, to remove SEXCRIME and OLDTHINK.
Peace through strength. Kindness is weakness. Education through ignorance. Free speech through censorship. Safety through living in constant fear. The new overlords are simultaneously the strongest and most delicate creatures alive.
The Leader bit his well-done hamberder, and it was good.
[Presidential Actions/ New York Times archive link/ 1984/ Brave New World]