OPINION:
In this past Tuesday’s State of the Union Address, President Biden did his best to impersonate a leader. “Six days ago,” he shouted, “Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the very foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways.” And, thus, the same man who spent the entire first year of his presidency trying to shake the foundations of America pretended to be the champion of the free-thinking world.
Welcome to a world where down is up and up is down, where the truth is a lie, and the lie is the truth.
Welcome to a dark existence where good is evil and evil is good, where science is voodoo and voodoo is science.
Welcome to a bad dream where slavery is freedom and freedom is slavery.
Welcome to an opaque delusion where lemmings pretend to be leaders, and leaders lead lemmings to their own demise.
Welcome to a land of Thought Police and doublespeak.
Welcome to Big Government, Big Brother and Big Lies. Welcome to Oceania. Welcome to “1984.”
In his classic 1949 dystopian fiction, George Orwell describes, with eerie prescience, a world where totalitarianism, manipulation, coercion and deception have prevailed. His protagonist is a man named Winston Smith, who, as you know, ends up being more of an antihero than a hero.
After fighting nobly to resist the “menacing ways” of an overbearing and all-controlling government, Smith eventually succumbs. Elevating safety over freedom and the material over the moral, he betrays his soul, denounces his friends and, finally, he pledges himself and his loyalty to the Party. Any possibility of independent thought dies when Winston Smith accepts the government’s insistence that 2 + 2 = 5 and begins to recite this mantra over and over again as a symbol of his obeisance to delusion over reality.
As you listened to Mr. Biden’s State of the Union, how can you not think of Winston Smith? How can you not see the parallels? None of it adds up. The man is little more than a shill for the Party, a lying mouthpiece for the Ministry of Truth.
The free world is being led by a man who traffics in doublespeak. This president tells us that men are women and women are men, that nursing mothers are birthing persons, that gender is fluid, but that trans-identity is fixed.
He talks of global warming except where the globe isn’t warming, and, well, that’s because it’s climate change rather than global warming.
He champions science but denies biology, physiology, genetics and DNA. He says that masks work except when they don’t. He claims Kenosha was a peaceful protest, but Jan. 6 was an insurrection. He tells us mRNA vaccines are safe even though, by definition, they haven’t been around long enough to prove their safety.
This is the same man who lauded former Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a COVID-19 hero even while this gangster of a governor sentenced thousands of New York’s senior citizens to COVID-19 death. He says Rachel Levin is the highest-ranking female appointment to “her” position even though the fact is Rachel was given the name Robert and is not a female.
When Rachel Dolezal said she was Black, our president was silent, yet his party continued to scold whites for appropriating Black culture. This is a man who celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. while he doubles down on critical race theory that, by definition, says we must judge people by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. This is a man who thinks those chanting “Let’s go Brandon” are profane while those screaming “F—- Donald Trump” are not.
Mr. Biden apparently believes that buying 600,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia is good for the environment but exploiting our own oil reserves is bad. He tells us that sky rocking prices for gasoline and groceries are evidence of a strong economy. He champions freedom while threatening that his “patience is growing thin” with those of us who defend it. He agrees with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that burning churches is “understandable,” but protesting truckers should be jailed.
This is the Orwellian doublespeak of a party that boldly declares; they can’t tolerate intolerance, they hate hateful people, they’re sure that nothing is sure, they know nothing can be known, and they’re absolutely confident there are no absolutes.
Mr. Biden is a president who believes in exclusion under the banner of inclusion and hate under the banner of love. He cheers a month celebrating pride while condemning those who preach confession. This man believes people are defined by their desires except when his government decides it doesn’t like our conservative desires. This is a man who champions freedom while punishing free thought.
Mr. Biden is a man who thinks 2 + 2 = 5.
Our president thinks his name is Winston.
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Daycare: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery) and, most recently, “Grow Up: Life Isn’t Safe, But It’s Good.”
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