At many times over the past decade, it has been hard to believe some of the things that have happened or are happening in the United States. From overt and verbalized racism from the president and other top government officials to attempts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election by attacking the U.S. Capitol to bands of masked, militarized federal police forces on the streets of our cities, it seems in many ways like we are living in a dystopian novel.
For decades, novels that relayed or portrayed a dystopian future country or planet have been written and gained prominence. Some of you very well may have read some of them in school, while others may have watched film or television adaptations of the novels, while still others of you may have done both. While some of these books may have been written and published merely for entertainment value, others were intended to be satires and cautionary tales about the dangers of fascism, totalitarianism and authoritarianism. Considering that some of these novels were written in the aftermath of World War II in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it can be very unsettling to see how accurately they portray things that we see happening around us every day.
Perhaps the most well-known and most frequented referenced dystopian novel is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. First published in 1949, it tells the story of a fictional (or is it?) future in Oceania, a totalitarian state/country. Oceania is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader. In addition to introducing the concept of “big brother” to represent a repressive or overreaching government, it featured government surveillance and propaganda, with the latter largely to create a cult of personality related to Big Brother. The “Ministry of Truth” churns out propaganda extolling the virtues of Big Brother and aimed at convincing the citizens of Oceania that things are great, in spite of concrete evidence to the contrary. Anyone who has been paying attention sees these trends in our country today, with social media posts from The White House, the Department of Labor and other government agencies constantly praising President Trump and how prices are down even as everyday Americans see their grocery bills continue to skyrocket. They tout job creation numbers and unemployment figures that are undercut by empirical data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and others. When there are was government shutdown last fall, Trump and his cabinet members – as well as others beholden to Trump – did a full court press to convince Americans that the shutdown was all the fault of the Democrats. In press conferences, interviews and social media posts, we were inundated with daily instructions that “It’s the Democrats’ fault” when there was much evidence to the contrary. The very fact that government entities and representatives were trying so hard to convince people who to blame was chilling. One recurring theme in Nineteen Eighty-Four and other dystopian novels is blaming someone else – “them,” “others,” “the enemy”– for everything bad that happens. We have seen this countless times in the past several years, as Trump and his MAGA bootlickers try to pin the blame for all the ills of the country on immigrants or minorities or college professors.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four and other dystopian novels, one common theme is that the leader is always right. When he (because it’s pretty much always a male) is actually wrong, interviews are given and press conferences are held to try to explain away inconsistencies or attempt to rewrite or reframe what the leader said or did. How many times over the last year have we seen Karoline Leavitt stand at a podium and repeat blatant lies in defense of Trump? After promising during the campaign last year that he would release the Epstein files, Trump and his administration have instead obstructed, redacted and moved the goalposts in an effort to hide the fact that they are hiding something. Again, it’s the sort of behavior you routinely see leaders in dystopian novels exhibit.
In The Hunger Games, the corrupt Capital sends out groups of masked, heavily armed security forces (called “peacekeepers”) to keep the citizens in line and enforce the Capital’s rules. It does not take much to see much of the same thing in what has been happening in Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities with ICE. Masked, heavily armed, questionably trained “police” forces indiscriminately arresting, assaulting and, yes, even killing innocent citizens. They act with impunity and say that basic constitutional protections do not exist and that they take their orders directly from the executive branch. Many of the peacekeepers in The Hunger Games are sadistic individuals who thrive on a show of force and violence. Sadly, it seems like the same can be said for some of those in ICE.
Another issue over the past few years has been the censorship of books and the disdain for reading, things that call to mind Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1953. While we may not see the sorts of book burnings that occur in that novel, and that occurred in Germany during the Nazi regime, there have been Congressional hearings on censorship and banning books simply because some people find the material in those books objectionable. In almost all of these dystopian novels, there is a hatred of education and a desire by the state for citizens to just follow along and do what those in power want them to do. How many times in the past 10 years have we heard people denigrate college degrees or being educated, talking about how universities are “woke” and how they “indoctrinate” students? Of course, those who are well read recognize that an uneducated populace is more easily manipulated, a theme that appears countless times across countless dystopian novels. Ironically, many of the people lambasting colleges and education are themselves graduates of elite, selective private universities. Donald Trump went to Penn. Josh Hawley went to Stanford and Yale. Ted Cruz went to Princeton and Harvard. Education at the highest levels was fine for them, but you shouldn’t do it because it will warp your mind and make you “woke.” Of course, that’s because they know that an educated populace will see through their bullshit and understand that the game is rigged and those who are wealthy and in power are only concerned with remaining wealthy and in power.
A few months ago, Trump announced some upcoming “Patriot Games” in which a few people from each state would compete against one another for bragging rights and the entertainment of an elite few. Anyone who has read The Hunger Games undoubtedly sees the chilling similarities between what happens in that novel and what Trump has proposed.
Finally, novels such as The Handmaid’s Tale describe a society in which the only value of women is to get pregnant and have babies. Those who cannot or who choose not to are scorned and treated with contempt. Heaven forbid a woman think and make choices for herself in terms of what is right for her in terms of getting an education, having a career or becoming a mother. Sadly, similar viewpoints have been espoused more and more often lately by some on the extreme right. We have politicians and political talking heads advocating for the repeal of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – you know, the amendment that gave women the right to vote – because they say women are “too emotional” and cannot be trusted to make good decisions in the voting booth. As absurd as that notion is in and of itself, it’s blatantly hypocritical having seen what we’ve seen out of Trump and other MAGA folks over the past 10 years. Donald Trump is the most emotionally unhinged person to ever occupy the White House and his frequent deranged rants on social media and in press conferences have shown him time and again to be mentally unstable. So, it’s okay for someone like that to occupy the presidency but it’s not okay for the average female to be able to vote? Men have controlled the levers of power in this country and all around the world for millennia and all it has gotten us are countless wars and an oligarchy that increasingly concentrates obscene wealth in the hands of a small contingency of males while millions are starving or homeless. Lately, there has been talk of “marriage camps” and “money for babies” and other ways to try to convince women that they need only to worry about being a mother. Don’t learn, don’t vote, don’t speak, don’t think for yourself. Just keep popping out babies and everything will be wonderful.
It’s one thing to read some of the aforementioned dystopian novels and perhaps be taken aback by the conditions presented, while at the same time saying “That could never happen to us, here in the real world, here in the United States of America.” But if you look around these days, you’ll see that some of these things ARE happening here today – and suddenly the worst of those fictional, oppressive government regimes doesn’t seem so far fetched or fictional.
