The Jabberwocky of Doublespeak – The New Political Lingo
“`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
From Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
Those who have kept their wits about them since the Obama administration are responding to this quote with cocked heads, bewildered expressions and a quiet, “Wha-a-a-t?”
Many others, who have accepted their rapid descent into a constant state of cognitive dissonance will loudly proclaim what these stanzas of pure gibberish actually mean:
1. President Obama was the greatest U.S. President the world will ever know because, in spite of all evidence otherwise, he told us how great he was and we believed him, or
2. President Trump will be the greatest U.S. President the world will ever know because, in spite of all the evidence otherwise, he’s telling us how great he is and we believe him.
Patriots, plying our influence on social media, are being threatened by Jabberwocky first-hand on a daily basis while feeling like we’ve truly fallen deep into the rabbit hole.
In response to principled posts informing followers of consistent evidence that President Trump was elected on meaningless chants and false pretenses of failed promises, true Conservative Constitutionalists are being shunned and disparaged based on an alternate lexicon.
Terms like “Astroturf”, meaning a fake surface made to look like an organic material, now means “grassroots”, in regard to Trump followers who believe that their champion represents the founding principles of our nation.
The word “conservatives” has been redefined to mean Republicans who accepted Donald Trump as a valid representative of the Grand Old Party despite all evidence to the contrary.
I’m afraid that the mindless chants eagerly parroted by the faithful Trump followers actually rewired their brains. “Lock Her Up!” “Build that Wall!” “Tell the Truth!” “CNN Sucks!” “Drain the Swamp!” “U.S.A!” were efficiently utilized to captivate his fans.
Inexplicably, and in stunning evidence of dysfunctional cognition, Conservative Constitutionalists are being labeled “cultists” by faithful Trump followers, in direct contradiction of the actual definition:
an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers
the object of such devotion
a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
Tim Crook, writing for The Guardian, explains:
“Trump takes doublethink to a new extreme, and if Orwell were alive today, I imagine Trump would amuse and horrify him at the same time. The key message in Nineteen Eighty-Four is that the purpose of propaganda is to narrow and limit human consciousness, confuse human conscience, and control and narrow the range of thinking. As all students of Orwellian literature will recall, Squealer, the propagandist porker in Animal Farm, can “turn black into white” and is expert in “new belief”.
With the advent of a Trump administration, the Orwellian Doublespeak that began during the Obama years is now set in concrete, like a ‘Murica Rosetta Stone that will be excavated thousands of years hence.
Granted, the political petri dish has been fomenting for decades, offering the perfect medium for political Jabberwocky to flourish among both the Left and the Right.
Michael Sheldon, from the Globe and Mail, describes the situation:
“As Orwell suggests, the road to tyranny often begins with a misplaced trust in a managerial elite promising simple solutions to hard problems. Big Brother’s ministries of Truth, Peace, Love, and Plenty pretend to serve the greater good, but are merely bureaucratic shams rife with incompetence and infighting. With our own fondness for think tanks and government bodies bearing Orwellian names and dubious claims of competence, we are always in danger of waking up to find a Ministry of Truth feeding us “alternative facts.”
When the Jabberwocky of Doublespeak becomes the jargon of our nation’s political discourse, our Republic is doomed.
The only line in Carroll’s verse that makes sense is this:
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”
For we will not only lose the ability to communicate truths, but we will become fodder for the very monster we have created.
