George Orwell and The Founding Fathers

You may want to prepare yourself for the coming Trump administration by rereading George Orwell’s “1984” if it’s been a while. I know many of you, like me, read it at the beginning of Trump’s first term in office. For me, it was right after Kellyanne Conway coined the term “alternative facts” in response to Trump’s lies about the size of his inauguration day crowd. Trump’s first press secretary Sean Spicer (who only lasted six months in the job), quickly backed up Trump’s obvious lie.

The parallel to Orwell’s book, which is about the manipulation of truth and facts as an aid to government control in a totalitarian society, was unavoidable. In “1984,” the dictator, Big Brother, rules through his cult of personality, perpetuated by the “Thought Police.” Independent thinking is no longer allowed. 2+2=5. Trump’s crowd size, we were told, was enormous—and his followers accepted it despite the proof before their own eyes that he was lying. The satire hit presciently close to the mark.

“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”

What happens when people give up the right to think for themselves? 1984. It’s a warning, not just an instruction manual for would-be dictators.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

In July of this year, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and one of the chief architects of Project 2025, proudly announced on Steve Bannon’s podcast, "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” What happened after that stunning pronouncement? Trump disclaimed all knowledge of Project 2025. Within 24 hours, if even that, the news cycle moved on. Four months later, Americans returned Donald Trump to office.

“One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”

That is how it begins. Of course, as in 2016, saying this out loud provokes dismissive laughter and claims that anyone concerned about dictatorship is being dramatic. “It’s about the price of gas and groceries,” people—even those who didn’t vote for Trump—say. Now that the final vote tallies are in and we know how slim Trump’s margins were, it’s become popular to point out that he doesn’t have a mandate—as though that matters to Trump.

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”

“In a way, the world−view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.”

How did people like Orwell and Margaret Atwood, who wrote “The Handmaid’s Tale,” get it so right from a distance of years? Atwood has even said she stopped writing “The Handmaids Tale” repeatedly because it seemed “too far-fetched.” But the Founding Fathers saw this possibility too, and they tried to create a system of government that would resist a slide into monarchy or dictatorship.

To encourage the adoption of the new Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote The Federalist Papers, 85 essays, from 1787 to 1788. They defended their vision of government against claims made by anti-federalists that the country was too big, that a president would become a dictator, and that a national army would crush any possibility of dissent.

To protect against those prospects, Madison argued in Federalist No. 10 that the system of government under consideration contained checks and balances to protect individual liberties. The legislative branch and the judicial branch would act as checks on the executive, and there would be a balance of power shared between states and the federal government.

Those are the checks that Trump wants to undo, whether it is through the substantive plans contained in Project 2025 that consolidate and centralize the powers of government in the presidency, or nominees for key positions in the cabinet whose loyalty is to Trump, not the Constitution.

Monday afternoon, Senators Blumenthal and Warren wrote to President Biden, urging him to take action designed to prevent, or at least call attention to, potential efforts by Donald Trump to quell domestic protest using the military, precisely the type of thing the Founding Fathers were concerned about.

“We write to urge you to issue a policy directive that prohibits the mobilization of active duty military or federalizing National Guard personnel to be deployed against their fellow Americans unless specifically authorized. The Posse Comitatus Act ‘outlaws the willful use of any part of the Armed Forces to execute the law unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.’”

The senators point to the narrow exception to the prohibition against using the military for domestic law enforcement under the Insurrection Act, which, they explain, “allows the President to deploy military personnel within U.S. borders under narrow circumstances of insurrection, rebellion, or extreme civil unrest,” but even then, use of the military is “strictly” limited “to emergency needs” and the purpose behind its use must be reestablishing civilian control as soon as possible. The senators asked President Biden to issue guidance that would clarify the Insurrection Act can only be used when state or local authorities are overwhelmed and that even then, the President “must consult with Congress to the maximum extent practicable before exercising this authority, as well as transmit to the Federal Register the legal authorities.”

Why are Senators Warren and Blumenthal writing this letter, and why are they writing it now? They explain that it’s because “President-elect Trump’s comments have indicated he could invoke the Insurrection Act ‘on his first day in office.’ He has called his political opponents ‘the enemy from within’ and said they ‘should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.’’ They point out that Vice President-elect J.D. Vance said that Trump would use force against Americans when asked about it and refer back to Trump’s efforts to use the military against protestors during his first term in office. They are concerned that members of the military need guidance to understand that despite the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, there are still limits on presidential power because, “unaddressed, any ambiguity on the lawful use of military force, coupled with President-elect Trump’s demonstrated intent to utilize the military in such dangerous and unprecedented ways, may prove to be devastating.”

It is shocking, but not surprising, that an effort to educate the public and members of the military about the limits on a president’s use of the Insurrection Act is necessary as we approach Trump 2.0. But even without in-depth understanding of the law, we all know that in this country, the military cannot be turned loose on citizens who have assembled to exercise their First Amendment rights. If Trump does that, it may well be too late. The Senators are correct that every possible step must be taken to prevent it from happening in advance.

Back to “1984”: “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?”

In other words, stay informed. That is our most fundamental duty as Americans right now. Don’t look away. Don’t hope it won’t happen. Educate yourself, and prepare for the days ahead. “Do not obey in advance,” Yale Professor Tim Snyder’s advice, has become something of a mantra these days. It rests on the premise that dictators demand obedience. If it is not given voluntarily, if there are protests, even completely peaceful and lawful ones—the right of assembly granted to us by the Constitution—the dictator will come at us with his military. As Atwood wrote, “Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.” Let’s not be the ones who get boiled because they can’t be bothered to pay attention.

We’re in this together,

Joyce