“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,” Orwell wrote”
“During a press conference on Dec. 11, 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced there was good news on the state of the economy.”
“Inflation as measured by the overall CPI [has slowed to an average 2.5% pace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNNcSBo2Oc0),” she said, referring to the consumer price index. “Real wages are increasing roughly $1,200 dollars for the average worker.”
“When CNN political correspondent Kaitlan Collins attempted to ask a follow-up question, Leavitt pivoted to an attack. Not on Collins, a [frequent target of White House ire](https://www.aol.com/articles/trump-attacks-cnn-nasty-kaitlan-170503023.html), but on Leavitt’s predecessor in the Biden White House, Democrat Jen Psaki.”
“The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen,” Orwell wrote. “As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies — more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards.”
“In Leavitt’s usage, “transparency” has become a form of Orwellian “doublespeak,” a word or phrase which through the process of “doublethink” had come to encompass its exact opposite meaning.”
“Doublethink,” in Orwell’s writing, was the mechanism of thought manipulation that allowed someone “to know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.”
“Doublethink was the mechanism that enabled the citizens of Oceania, the Anglo-American superstate governed by Big Brother’s authoritarian regime, to accept that “WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
“In his famous essay “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell wrote that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
“Over the past 10 months, Leavitt has, among other things, claimed that the now dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development – USAID – provided a grant of $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru. Not true.”
” She has misrepresented the “One Big Beautiful Bill” as fully eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security. In reality, deductions for these are capped. She claimed that Trump coined the motto “peace through strength.” He didn’t. The phrase has been in circulation for decades, used most prominently by Ronald Reagan during his presidency.”
“All governments lie. But Leavitt has become a master of the art of political language, wielded to aggrandize her boss, belittle his opponents and deflect attention from administration scandals.”
jstank2 on
I reread 1984 last year. My mom asked me why I was reading it again.
I said, “It might be the last year I’m allowed to read it”
Antipolemic on
The GOP is getting a bit of a free ride on inflation right now, which was already falling precipitously in Biden’s last year. The problem for critics is that they are reduced to the horribly weak position of claiming that “inflation would be lower without Trump’s tariffs and trade disruptions.” While this is almost certainly true, it is the weakest form of argument and puts the critic on the defensive to prove the unprovable.
m4rc0n3 on
> Psaki, claimed Leavitt, stood at the same lectern a year before and told “utter lies.”
Didn’t Psaki stop being press secretary 3 years ago?
1cl3nstd4yt on
We failed as a democracy when we allowed FOX News to become established as a legal, monetized form of doublethink.
What the Murdoch family does is a national security threat. They should be fined for nonstop mendacity, and put out of business.
People who get their news from FOX think this soulless spokes-demon is _honest_.
DerekWeidmanSculptor on
I am sure I am one of the few posting here than genuinely feel both parties are completely full of shit, and both feel like 1984,with just different but equally unpalatable societies they are pushing towards.
urban_mystic_hippie on
Barbie Goebbels gets paid with your tax money to lie on a daily basis
darth_helcaraxe_82 on
>To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.
9 Comments
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,” Orwell wrote”
“During a press conference on Dec. 11, 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced there was good news on the state of the economy.”
“Inflation as measured by the overall CPI [has slowed to an average 2.5% pace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNNcSBo2Oc0),” she said, referring to the consumer price index. “Real wages are increasing roughly $1,200 dollars for the average worker.”
“When CNN political correspondent Kaitlan Collins attempted to ask a follow-up question, Leavitt pivoted to an attack. Not on Collins, a [frequent target of White House ire](https://www.aol.com/articles/trump-attacks-cnn-nasty-kaitlan-170503023.html), but on Leavitt’s predecessor in the Biden White House, Democrat Jen Psaki.”
“Psaki, claimed Leavitt, stood at the same lectern a year before and told “[utter lies](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/leavitt-vs-cnn-s-collins-my-predecessor-used-this-podium-to-lie-and-people-like-you-just-took-her-at-her-word/vi-AA1SbGxQ?ocid=00000000#details).” In contrast, Leavitt insisted, “Everything I’m telling you is the truth backed by real, factual data, and you just don’t want to report on it ’cause you want to push untrue narratives about the president.”
The “real, factual data” that underpinned Leavitt’s statement was specious at best. The [actual inflation rate for September was 3%](https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/economy/us-cpi-consumer-prices-inflation-september), [not the 2.5% figure cherry-picked from economic data](https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/11/politics/inflation-trump-karoline-leavitt-prices). The rise in real wages? CNN business editor David Goldman writes that [in the past year](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/realer_11212025.htm), U.S. workers have experienced “the lowest annual paycheck growth [that Americans have had since May 2021](https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/16/economy/affordability-wage-growth-inflation).”
“The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen,” Orwell wrote. “As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies — more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards.”
“The lack of transparency depicted in “1984” has an uncanny echo in our current political moment, despite Leavitt’s repeated assertions that President Donald Trump is the “[most transparent president in history](https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2025-11-20/the-latest-belated-jobs-report-likely-shows-sluggish-hiring).”
“Leavitt has made that claim countless times, including in her [public defense of Trump’s “Quiet, Piggy!” dismissal](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/20/white-house-defends-trump-piggy-insult) of Bloomberg News journalist Catherine Lucey last month.”
“In Leavitt’s usage, “transparency” has become a form of Orwellian “doublespeak,” a word or phrase which through the process of “doublethink” had come to encompass its exact opposite meaning.”
“Doublethink,” in Orwell’s writing, was the mechanism of thought manipulation that allowed someone “to know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.”
“Doublethink was the mechanism that enabled the citizens of Oceania, the Anglo-American superstate governed by Big Brother’s authoritarian regime, to accept that “WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
“And it is the mechanism that allowed Leavitt to proclaim, in defending Trump’s unwillingness to release the Epstein files, “This administration has [done more with respect to transparency](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/12/trump-karoline-leavitt-jeffrey-epstein) when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein than any administration ever.”
“That claim was pronounced “[fabulously audacious](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/12/trump-karoline-leavitt-jeffrey-epstein)” by The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, in a story headlined “Nothing to see here: Trump press chief in full denial mode over Epstein.”
“In his famous essay “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell wrote that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
“Over the past 10 months, Leavitt has, among other things, claimed that the now dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development – USAID – provided a grant of $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru. Not true.”
” She has misrepresented the “One Big Beautiful Bill” as fully eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security. In reality, deductions for these are capped. She claimed that Trump coined the motto “peace through strength.” He didn’t. The phrase has been in circulation for decades, used most prominently by Ronald Reagan during his presidency.”
“All governments lie. But Leavitt has become a master of the art of political language, wielded to aggrandize her boss, belittle his opponents and deflect attention from administration scandals.”
I reread 1984 last year. My mom asked me why I was reading it again.
I said, “It might be the last year I’m allowed to read it”
The GOP is getting a bit of a free ride on inflation right now, which was already falling precipitously in Biden’s last year. The problem for critics is that they are reduced to the horribly weak position of claiming that “inflation would be lower without Trump’s tariffs and trade disruptions.” While this is almost certainly true, it is the weakest form of argument and puts the critic on the defensive to prove the unprovable.
> Psaki, claimed Leavitt, stood at the same lectern a year before and told “utter lies.”
Didn’t Psaki stop being press secretary 3 years ago?
We failed as a democracy when we allowed FOX News to become established as a legal, monetized form of doublethink.
What the Murdoch family does is a national security threat. They should be fined for nonstop mendacity, and put out of business.
People who get their news from FOX think this soulless spokes-demon is _honest_.
I am sure I am one of the few posting here than genuinely feel both parties are completely full of shit, and both feel like 1984,with just different but equally unpalatable societies they are pushing towards.
Barbie Goebbels gets paid with your tax money to lie on a daily basis
>To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.
When we want your opinion we’ll give it to you.