You thought it wouldn’t happen, that it couldn’t happen here. Well think again.
The revolution started on January 6, 2021, with a brazen attack on the Capital. Many believed the MAGA uprising ended when the battle was subdued, but that was only the beginning. The MAGA loyalists who were condemned as criminals for killing cops and attacking Congress have returned as heroes. It turns out Trump lost the 2020 election in name only. He returned triumphant, backed by his refurbished Party, and ready to remake the world according to his vision of personal enrichment and Might makes Right: deploy troops in our cities, deport brown people, stomp on Congress, trash science, bankrupt education, bomb Iran, build a resort in Gaza and snatch Greenland. And, uh, run Venezuela for a while.
1984, George Orwell’s portrayal of a bleak world run by Big Brother was supposed to be a cautionary tale about totalitarianism in the 20th century, but it has turned out to be an accurate description of our current political landscape. Inalienable rights have gone out the window, politicians whine or cower, and speech is being purged in academia and journalism. Once we were citizens entitled to question authority, now we are targets, potential or actual. Masked men roam our streets hunting foreigners to send them to labor camps at home or torture centers. Journalists, activists, and scholars are becoming unpersons. Question the new order and you’ll get sued, fired or shot in the face.
Orwell described a world divided into totalitarian superstates in perpetual war with each other. Trump, Putin and Xi have divided our world into three spheres of influence in which each leader dominates his region with the use of force against allies of foes alike without fear of reprisal. The great leader in 1984 enjoyed total authority manufactured by Thought Police. Trump lets the Tech Bros woo n while his cabinet wield their big sticks against opponents. Orwell’s Party rewrote historical records to support the state’s views. Trump’s minions toss documents about slavery down memory holes, resurrect Confederate monuments and demand a return to cultural values of the 1950s—or the 1850’s. Orwell warned that he Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. We hope The Siren stirs you to ask, while you still can, who controls the present? As politicians remake the past to reassert White Male Christian dominance and influencers banter on about the wonders of artificial intelligence, we should consider how serious thinking can occur. Where does independent thought exist in an information landscape controlled by algorithms and stifled by state ideology? Have we been lured away from thinking already? Is it easier to scroll, to look away from horror, to sleepwalk into a predictable future? In our view, thinking seriously begins with a good laugh.
-THE EDITORS
