‘1984’ arrives 35 years late

t was a bright cold day,” begins George Orwell’s “1984,” “and the clocks were striking 13.”

That came to mind as the impeachment drama reached its 11th hour in the House Intelligence Committee, now on track to move inex- orably toward a party-line vote in the House to try President Trump in the Senate, where a jury dominated by his Republican peers seems predetermined to find him not guilty on the basis of the ancient legal principle, “I Don’t Care. Do U?”

There’s no serious disagreement about the facts the committee established, despite White House attempts at a cover-up and furious Republican complaints about the House’s “inquisition.” And there’s no serious argument that Trump not just publicly inviting this time but privately demanding foreign interference in our elections before paying the money America had promised doesn’t amount to a high crime or misdemeanor.

Trump’s defenders, as I noted last week, have been throwing out a wild series of conspiracies — it would be too generous to call them “theories” — involving Jews. Sorospulledthestringshere!Hissonisthe whistleblower! Epstein was murdered to take down the president! Disgusting.

MAGA is devolving into DGAF as Republicans throw out hate bait for the Trumpists.

I flashed back to Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece about thoughtcrime during the testimony Wednesday of Trump’s ambassador to the EU, a hotelier who donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee. Gordon Sondland had to update his sworn testimony to avoid perjury charges by belatedly recalling that, oh yeah, actually he had told Ukraine they’d need to probe Biden if they wanted the president to release the money, and that Trump’s desire for the quid pro quo was as obvious as “two plus two equals four.”

Ranking Republican Devin Nunes waved his arms as he mocked the president’s political appointee for “doing funny little math problems, two plus two equals four.”

In “1984,” Orwell writes that “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command,” just before Winston Smith, the novel’s everyman protagonist, writes in his diary that “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

Later, the state finds his diary, and Winston is taken to the Ministry of Love where his interrogator holds up four fingers, and asks how many. “Four,” says Winston, and the torture begins.

“How can I help it?” he blubbered. ‘How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.’ ”

“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”

The torture continues until Winston not only says, but affirmatively believes, that each number is whatever he is told.

In the impeachment hearings Thursday, Republicans had a sign behind them reading “0 Days Since Adam Schiff Followed House Rules.”

These people aren’t all innumerate cretins, but that’s an admission not an alibi for the ones playing that role for the cameras and the president. And for the ones throwing mud at the Dems or the Jews or whoever else is convenient. And for the ones standing with the truth-manglers and the mud-slingers.

In “1984,” Orwell writes that “a Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts. Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated, and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent in” the party’s sacred principles of “newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past.”

Thinking about this, Winston “felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable…

“And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure FOR EVER? Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”

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