Carson is a government major from Chesapeake, Virginia. He is a member of the History Club, Public Policy Club, Lutheran Students’ Association and Theodore Roosevelt Society. Outside of his studies and social life, he enjoys reading about historical and current events in addition to dinosaurs.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s own.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
The above is, for those unaware, a quote from George Orwell’s “1984.” It comes to me often in modern political discourse, which at least in the West is more drenched in dishonesty than when he wrote it. It has been the operative principle of our entire national life, and it covers subjects from massive scandals to as mundane of subjects as redistricting. Not looking is now the operative rule of politics.
Donald Trump is a master at taking advantage of this rule. Indeed, the core of his political success has been making his supporters not read too closely and ignore conduct that, if done in the days before social media and hyper-partisanship, would have gotten him removed from office. Aside from such obvious examples as his skittishness surrounding the Epstein files, this trend can be seen in a wide array of issues — remember when Trump threatened Denmark to hand over Greenland because he did not get a Nobel Peace Prize? While forgetting this incident is easy and understandable in light of the constant stream of outrage we are inundated with 24/7, the idea of the President threatening an ally because he hadn’t been given a medal is ridiculous and demonstrates a profound lack of mental maturity on the part of the leader of the Free World.
However, the nature of our time demands that we ignore this and pretend that the President is capable of responsibly exercising the power entrusted to him, even when he’s proven he lacks the mental capacity to do so. The story didn’t even command media attention for that long; ask yourself if you even remembered this outrageous conduct before I brought it up in this article. I bet the answer is no.
Similarly, Trump’s much-vaunted claim that he is “draining the swamp” requires not looking or thinking critically about his conduct. His cryptocurrency ventures are a phenomenal example: It’s hard to think of anything more corrupt than the President setting rules for industries he has companies in and owes billions of dollars of his net worth to. Trump’s jet from Qatar is another example of public corruption. Why else would they give him a high-class jet other than an attempt at foreign influence? The fact that Attorney General Pam Bondi signed off on it doesn’t make me feel any better when she herself was previously a registered lobbyist for Qatar.
Although it may be easy for Democrats to decry this (and they should), they have also asked their own voters not to look and see the evidence before them. In fact, part of what got me first thinking about this was reflecting on Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign in a discussion with friends: The idea that he was up for another four years in the job required not paying close attention to his many embarrassing public appearances, and the debate exposed it as a lie for the whole country to see. Too many top Democrats were complicit; most national-level Democratic officials supported his reelection campaign, and many liberal influencers who should’ve called out the deception instead partook in it. Jon Stewart ’84 should not have been one of the only major liberal figures to call this out before the debate.
This trend continued even after Biden stepped down. I recall seeing multiple opinion pieces comparing him to Cincinnatus, a Roman politician who laid down his emergency powers upon having resolved the crisis that got them granted to him. This always struck me as absurd: Cincinnatus didn’t need declining poll numbers and the prospect of certain electoral defeat to step aside. He instead did it for the good of Rome in a demonstration of civic virtue unthinkable from any representative of our modern political class.
I’d argue the upcoming redistricting referendum is another example of rank dishonesty. The advertisements I see for the topic constantly insist that it’s about “fairness” and “letting the people decide,” but the whole point of this redistricting is for politicians in Richmond, Va. to entrench Democratic control of Virginia’s congressional delegation — a goal rather contrary to thess stated aims. Regardless of whether you think it’s necessary to offset similar moves by states like Texas, I don’t see how this is more democratic, as it denies representation to a large swathe of Virginians.
Dishonesty is not new to American politics, nor to politics in general. In the ancient Greek historian Thucydides’ “History of the Peloponnesian War,” he writes that a civil war in the city-state of Corcyra led to words losing all meaning, with restraint, moderation and critical thought now being deemed forms of cowardice, weakness and indecisiveness. However, in an American context, this level of pervasive lying is something I’d argue is a development of the last 10 years. With this torrent of disinformation in the air, how can one navigate this environment? How can one be a good citizen?
While it’s not easy, the simple answer is to always engage in critical thinking. It’s important to treat all claims made by partisan actors, ranging from politicians to their commentariat sympathizers to the rage-bait accounts on social media, with skepticism, especially when they conform entirely to your preconceived worldview. People fall for misinformation most readily when it validates their extant narrative of how the world works or aligns with what they want to be true, so trying to avoid this common cognitive trap is essential.
I won’t pretend this is an easy fix. Believing something that one wishes was true is common human behavior. I myself have fallen into that habit many times and will probably do so again in the future. It is, however, important to at least make the effort if we want to engage with reality as it is and move forward as a nation.
Otherwise, we are merely obeying the most essential command — and sacrificing our capacity for independent thought in the process.
