Reading the Other Book — Orwell and the Democratic Party
The modern political climate in the United States is defined by a book by George Orwell, but not the one you’re thinking of.
In 1936 George Orwell traveled to Spain. Once there he joined the revolutionary army that had been hastily formed by panicked local governments to stop the takeover of the country by the fascist Francisco Franco.
As chronicled in Orwell’s book Homage to Catalonia, the writer arrived in Barcelona to find a situation that so resembled his dreams of a socialist society even he struggled to deal with the classlessness of it:
“There was much in it I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.” — George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia
Near the end of his adventure in Spain the situation was no longer as rosy in Barcelona, however. Having spent months freezing, starving and bored in the battlefield; having been shot in the throat by an errant sniper; having spent weeks sleeping on benches and in ditches while trying to find someone to issue him discharge papers after his injury; Orwell returned to the city only to find his worker’s paradise transformed into a nightmare. The unified worker’s army formed at the war’s beginning had factionalized into the Russian-backed Communists; the Anarcho-Syndicalists; Orwell’s own group, the Trotskyist POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista) and a number of smaller organizations. The Russians, concerned that a truly collectivized Spain might cause some revolutionary spillover into France — which was in the throws of labor unrest at the time — and cripple a vital trading partner, declared the other factions traitors and began imprisoning and executing them.
Orwell found himself hunted by his own army and barely escaped the country.
In this age of polarization, one would expect that George Orwell’s experience would have turned him solidly against socialism, but it did not. (He had no kind words for Stalinist Russia after that, however.) In fact, his taste of the possibilities of a collectivized society seemed to rededicate his resolve (“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.”). But, the betrayal of factions with which he had previously been fighting side-by-side and the discovery of the broad misrepresentation in the press of what had happened re-framed how he, from then on, saw the relationship of politics to truth.
Even today, arguments about his final two, and best known, books, Animal Farm and 1984, desperately try to place their indictments either firmly onto the square occupied by the Right or onto the square occupied by the Left and miss the point that Orwell was indicting both. He was indicting the political manipulation of “truth” by both sides.
Orwell spent the rest of his life dedicated to this idea of objective truth as best he understood it. If Orwell had been incensed about political deception in the 1930s, however, he would be apoplectic about where America is today.
The American political playbook seems to have devolved into one simple rule: say whatever it takes to win. On the incoming President’s side we have promises to invade Greenland, Canada and Panama; to keep immigrants from taking American jobs, unless they are high paying tech jobs in which case we’re going to EXPAND the program that puts immigrants into those roles; to lower prices while simultaneously raising tariffs and acknowledging that it will be impossible to lower prices; to cut the government’s budget while giving an unlimited ceiling under which to accumulate more debt through budget reconciliation; and on and on and on.
On the Democrat’s side we are being promised that they will do everything to protect our most vulnerable populations while 85 Democratic House members (including my Representative, Mike Thompson D-CA) just voted to pass the first federal anti-trans legislation in American history, and ten Democratic Senators just joined Republicans to give a filibuster-proof path for a sweeping and punitive immigration bill per Donald Trump’s orders. Inexplicably attempting to normalize the relentless and baffling rhetoric from Republicans — which cannot be parsed or acted upon in any coherent legislative way — Democrats have been pledging to work with the incoming administration on its priorities; priorities that are entirely undefinable.
It is as if the Democratic Party is saying, “We see that you are obscuring your intentions intentionally, but can we help you achieve whatever those obscured, and almost assuredly evil, goals are anyway?”
Democratic politicians are not stupid. Most understand the issues that we, as a country and as a planet, are facing and, with quibbles over minor details, know the solutions to these problems. Maybe a few are in a kind of deep denial, but for the most part, Democrats and those of us on the Left get it — whether we find the solutions politically expedient or not.
Most of us know that the climate catastrophe is now upon us, and yet it is so politically damaging to do anything that might, even slightly, disrupt the American economy that we’d rather watch major cities burn.
Most of us know that schools are underfunded and urban infrastructure is crumbling, but one cannot possibly suggest raising taxes to help with those things and expect to win elections.
Most of us know that the solution to homelessness is building homes.
Most of us know that the solution to traffic is public transportation.
Most of us know that the solution to crime is well paying, secure jobs.
Most of us know that the solution to the health care crises is socialized medicine.
But our political representatives won’t make these statements because they are not paths to winning political power — at least that’s what they believe. Why, one could reasonably ask, if the majority — which would seem like the defining decision-making group in a democracy — already understands the situation, don’t they vote that way? Because we have been convinced, representatives and constituents alike, that we must win at all costs, and only then will we be able to make change. We will say anything, do anything — including hand-waving a genocide away, evidently — to make sure that we win.
Orwell saw this same inclination in Catalonia:
“The workers could always be brought to heel by an argument that is almost too obvious to need stating: ‘Unless you do this, that and the other we shall lose the war.’ In every case, needless to say, it appeared that the thing demanded by military necessity was the surrender of something that the workers had won for themselves in 1936.” — George Orwell, Homage To Catalonia
It is notable that they lost the Spanish Civil War anyway; which brings us to the Democratic Party.
The Democrats have lost in almost every way they possibly could by this point. They have lost the Presidency, both chambers of Congress, the Judicial Branch, big business, and, astonishingly, the popular vote. It may be the sheer scope of this loss that is causing them to panic and take the wrong tack: capitulation. A combination of fear and self-interest, and perhaps a lack of dedication to any sort of moral ideology to start with, have moved the Overton window even further to the right.
While little can be done with politicians lacking any moral compass to start with, there are almost certainly a lot of them who believe that denying objective truth as a means to an end is not only useful, but a moral imperative. To these I say that maybe it’s time, with little power left to lose and life-threatening consequences if the country stays its current course, that a lesson might be taken from George Orwell, before it’s too late. If you are a politician wanting to regain our faith, consider telling us what you really believe — stand for what you know to be true — right now. You have lost today’s game of politics, and if you don’t redefine it utterly, we all will lose a great deal more.
Tell the radical truth. Do you think taxes must be raised? Say it out loud. Do you think that no one should get between a family and their doctor? Make that an absolutely firm stand. Do you know in your mind and your heart that there will be incalculable suffering if we don’t severely curtail fossil fuel use, even if that means there will be some suffering right now as we do it? Say that. Tell us what you believe, and let us judge it on the merits of your truth and not your political calculus.
George Orwell was never a friend to the Right, but he was also discarded by the Left as he criticized their assaults on the truth as well. Injured, unwell and politically isolated, he continued to write and broadcast what he believed to be true until his death in 1950. Towards the end of his life, the tides had begun to turn. Animal Farm had proven to be a massive success in 1945 and 1984 was going to become one of the most read books in the world. The influence of those two books and their skeleton key, Homage to Catalonia, cannot be overstated. Orwell had forced open the eyes of the world. His visions were frightening, but his warnings took hold in our distrust of authority, our use of language and in our understanding that a world filled with a barrage of lies will eventually drive us mad.
Consider, Democratic politicians, the profound relief that the public might feel if you start openly embracing and expounding radical and daring truths. Received political wisdom is that we won’t accept anything difficult, but what is more difficult than the truth that Orwell told? One of the organizations he most criticized, BBC Radio, now has a statue of the man standing at its entrance. Stop being the thing he warned us about. Be something better before Winston Smith drops the last bit of evidence of your existence into a Memory Hole.
