by George Packer, The Atlantic, March 25, 2025- In George Orwell’s 1984, at the climax of Hate Week, Oceania is suddenly no longer at war with Eurasia, but instead is at war with Eastasia, and always has been. The pivot comes with no explanation or even announcement. During a public harangue, a Party orator is handed a scrap of paper and redirects his vitriol “mid-sentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax.”
Republican politicians in Donald Trump’s Inner Party faced a similar verbal challenge when the president changed sides in Russia’s war against Ukraine. One morning in late February, Republicans in Washington greeted Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero for continuing to resist Russian aggression. By afternoon, following Zelensky’s meeting in the Oval Office with Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance, the Ukrainian leader was an ungrateful, troublesome, and badly dressed warmonger who, if he hadn’t actually started the conflict with Russia, was the only obstacle to ending it.
After this new line was communicated to party leaders, a pro-Zelensky social-media post was taken down as swiftly as the banners denouncing Eurasia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and Senator Lindsey Graham—all supporters of Ukraine—were sent out in front of the cameras like the Hate Week orator, not to explain a new policy but to pretend that nothing had changed while America switched sides. Using nearly identical language, Rubio, Johnson, and Graham declared that Zelensky must do Trump’s bidding, which is also Vladimir Putin’s bidding, and capitulate to Russia; otherwise, Johnson and Graham added, Zelensky should resign. America’s enemy isn’t Russia. America’s enemy is Ukraine.
Graham’s mechanical style is to flit almost gleefully from one position to its opposite while remaining a party insider, which is his only consistent position and the justification for all his others. Johnson stares through his glasses and gropes for the appropriate words with the unease of a simple man trying not to screw up his lines: “I can tell you that we are—we are re-exerting peace through strength. President Trump has brought back strength to the White House. We knew that this moment would come, we worked hard for it to come, and now it’s here.” Rubio is a more complex case. He sat mute throughout the Oval Office blowup while his principles almost visibly escaped his body, causing it to sink deeper into the yellow sofa. Having made his name in the Senate as a passionate defender of democracy and adversary of authoritarianism, he must have suffered more than others from the inner contortions demanded by the new party line—they were written on his unhappy face.
But Rubio had already begun the process of mechanizing himself weeks before, when he shut down foreign-aid programs that he had always supported. Reappearing in public after the meeting with Zelensky, he denounced the Ukrainian president with the overzealous exasperation of a successfully hollowed policy maker. ... Ritualized humiliation is essential to an authoritarian regime. ... (read more)
Rod's Comment:
This is an excellent article. One thing that has amazed me is the way Republicans have been able to betray formerly held positions without batting an eye. Ukraine is the most obvious example and the focus of this article, but we also see it in other long term foundational believes of the modern Republican Party. Beyond Ukraine we see it in Republican's abandonment of collective security and America's leadership role in the world. We see it in tariff policy when for decades Republicans had been the party of free trade. We see in acceptance of violating the Constitution when the Republican Party had been the party of constitutional fidelity, strict construction and originalism. And we see in in abandonment of conservative sensibilities such as civic virtue, a preference of order over chaos, and respect for tradition and institutions and norms.
The above article is hidden behind a pay wall. You may want to consider subscribing to the Atlantic. While there may not be much an average citizen can do to push back against the Trump onslaught against democracy, one thing I think it is important to do is to support those media outlets and think tanks and institutions that are pushing back against our slide into authoritarianism. Atlantic is one of those publications providing thoughtful insight and analysis in these unusual times.
I have for a long time been planning to right a blog post on the ten or 12 or 15 books that has influenced by thinking or maybe something like, "twenty books every conservative should read." I keep putting it off. When I do get around to it, 1984 will be one of the books that make the cut. If you have never read it or read it long ago and forgot it, I suggest it.
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