We Have Reached Peak Orwell

I thought I was already as jaded as one could be.

But the media’s response to the Mueller report takes things to a whole new level of Orwell.

The exact opposite of what the media has been saying for two years turned out to be the case, and yet the media is claiming vindication. This is derangement on a level that hardly seems possible.

As Glenn Greenwald put it on Twitter: “Everyone knows the scandal’s key was the claim that Trump election-conspired with Russia and that he and his key associates were Russian assets. The Mueller Report found none of that. The media’s belief that they can avoid embarrassment by feigning vindication is embarrassing.”

Michael Tracey, also on the left, added: “Dems are gonna move to impeach Trump based on an FBI/CIA conspiracy theory that was just resolutely debunked by the elder statesman prosecutor who they’d previously declared would prove the conspiracy theory. Whenever you think we’ve hit rock bottom, the bottom always falls out.”

More: “There’s nothing inherently ‘progressive’ or ‘left-wing’ about impeaching the President on the basis of a discredited, militaristic FBI/CIA conspiracy theory that has effectively criminalized foreign policy heterodoxies, bred xenophobic paranoia, and stifled dissent.”

But like their neoconservative cousins, the left-liberal establishment loves the intelligence agencies, and the regime itself.

Even our supposedly chic cultural icons in the entertainment world trip over each other to come to the defense of organizations they once pilloried.

I feel sorry for the youngsters these days. Imagine having all your heroes in entertainment and culture saying, “Obey the Establishment and hold the opinions they authorize.” Not a lot of edginess there.

How will the history books — and here I am thinking specifically of the textbooks that will be used to educate students — treat Russiagate? Will they frankly acknowledge that the establishment peddled a fact-free conspiracy theory for two years? Will they admit that the Mueller report dismantled every major plank of that theory?

I find it hard to believe. Textbooks are always pro-establishment.

I fear we are entering into a new phase of propaganda and misinformation — and what’s so bizarre about it is that it’s happening at a time when the truth has never been more readily available.

We’ll get through this together, dear readers.