The 2024 election has shades of Orwell’s ‘1984’ | GUEST COMMENTS

Memory gaps are unfortunately familiar to all of us. There in the supermarket we encounter a familiar face; what is her name? Where are those car keys? These examples of our inability to remember immediately are annoyances that become more common as we get older and are in no way of our own design. They have to do with the neurological processes by which short-term memory is stored and later converted into long-term memory. These are unintentional memory gaps.

In the summer of 2024, we saw the emergence of intentional memory gaps. Holes have been strategically punched in the text of our collective short- and longer-term memory of events. Unlike unintentional memory gaps, these are collaborative, premeditated, and well-curated memory gaps. George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘1984’ was where many of us were first introduced to intentional memory gaps. Winston Smith worked at the Ministry of Truth. Through a series of pneumatic parachute-like devices, Winston and his colleagues erased thoughts, impulses and desires that were subversive to the Party. Big Brother was able to maintain control over information and history. Winston was charged with rewriting documents and reconfiguring events to fill in the gaps to conform to the party’s propaganda. Memory gaps were closed, a story was created. These fictions completely replaced the less manicured truth and in Orwell’s kingdom of Oceania the seas were calm and always undisturbed.

Orwell’s “1984” now feels prophetic. We started this summer with endless hand-wringing over the threats to democracy. Progressives raised eyebrows about how former President Donald Trump and his MAGA colleagues are committed to subverting elections and usurping power. At the time, President Joe Biden had secured the Democratic nomination after 14 million Democrats cast their votes for him during the primaries. None of the voters had an alternative, as the Democratic Party had ensured that there was no opposition. Then came the disastrous debate in June. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer assured us that Vice President Kamala Harris wanted to earn the party’s nomination from the bottom up. It turned out that the party elites rallied among themselves and chose Harris as their standard bearer without a single vote being cast for her.

When Harris’ campaign began, the audacity of memory-filling and gap-filling was breathtaking. We in Pennsylvania vividly remember her promise to ban fracking in her 2019 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. In a CNN interview on August 29, Dana Bash coquettishly asked about the fracking ban. Harris reminded us that she made it clear during the 2020 vice presidential debate that she supported fracking. What Harris actually said was that Biden would not ban fracking, and nothing about her own policies. No problem. No follow up then or since. We no longer need Winston Smith in the Ministry of Truth because we now have the doe-eyed cocker spaniels in the media to fill the gaps left by memory.

So it’s gone. Now Harris is a tough city prosecutor, convicting transnational criminals as they cross the southern border. Yet she told us in 2019 that illegal border crossings should no longer be a crime. Under her rule, approximately 10 million people have crossed the border illegally with impunity from January 2021 to date. When asked about this during her only interview with CNN, there was again the furrowed brow, the serious face as she reminded us that we have laws and that breaking them has consequences. This throws the 3.5 years of complete dereliction of duty to protect American sovereignty at the southern border into the incinerator by the modern-day Winston Smiths in the media.

We are told that the Internet has memory. Yet GovTrack, a website that ranks the political leanings of U.S. senators, had Harris as the most liberal senator in 2019. On their website, that ranking is now gone, lost to memory. When asked about this, the website’s curators said that just one year’s performance was insufficient to establish that ranking. It had been enough until Harris became the presumptive nominee.

True memory holing requires this level of media and press involvement. Weeks and weeks pass without journalists asking her a single question. What spell has been cast upon them? In ‘1984’ Winston was able to single-handedly retrieve wandering thoughts from memory. Now it requires the pacification of the press corps, the sleight of hand of the internet barons and the total participation of the traditional media. In this Summer of Memory Holing, all these conditions have been met. Harris is being reincarnated before our eyes. One by one, all evidence of her far-left past has been stored in memory. With that remake, her popularity has increased enormously. An adoring crowd has gathered. Now she wants both wind turbines and natural gas. She now sees the need for a border wall. There is no longer a need to abolish private health insurance. Forget promoting bail money for arsonists and rioters; now she will punish lawbreakers.

But even with all that skin loss, the best prophet of the future remains the past. Once chosen, there will be a hard blow to the port. The government will expand into every nook and cranny of our lives. Ronald Reagan wisely made the point that we are always one generation away from losing our freedom. The summer of 2024 could well be the prelude to the fall of 2024, when our freedom itself will be in the memory.

Dr. Bryan C. Donohue ([email protected]) is a cardiologist based in Pennsylvania.