"We have always been at war with Eastasia..."

Ukraine, Trump, and the end of the "deep state"

What could it possibly benefit the Democrats or the United States to see a prolongation of a conflict that nobody really thought Ukraine could win?

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It looks likely that the war between Russia and Ukraine will finally end soon, and some people are quite furious about this. In fact, to read the angry screeds from many liberal and self-identified leftist writers, you’d think this was the worst thing that could possibly happen.¹

Because I first cut my teeth on political resistance in the earliest days of this century, I’m old enough to remember when being “left” meant being against war and the global spread of capital. We marched and rioted and shut down cities to try to stop military invasions and international trade agreements. WTO, the G8, the War on Afghanistan, the War on Iraq … these were our clear targets, even if not every single person in any protest could articulate more than a few of the many reasons we wanted to stop them.

During those years, it was also evident to many of us how “liberal” political parties — Labor, the DNC — were at best unreliable allies and more often the enemy in these struggles. Regarding those wars, for instance, the leadership of those parties was fully in support of military action, but there was enough revolt with the larger parties to support popular protests against them. On the matter of globalization, however, the liberals weren’t to be trusted one bit.

I often have to remind myself that this was all more than two decades ago. I was in my early twenties then, I’m in my late forties now, and though my own sense of continuity with all my own past selves is strong, the past I remember no longer looks anything like the present we’re all trying to understand.

I’m not the only one of my generation struggling with this. Just the other day, a guy my age with whom I mostly just trade gym tips rather than political discourse, wondered aloud, “Wait — the left is defending the WTO now?” And he’s right to be confused about this, and also right to have noticed the shift.

To me, the most haunting detail in George Orwell’s 1984 has always been the bit about the war against Eurasia/Eastasia. If you’ve not read it or would anyway like a reminder, what happens is that the government in the book keeps changing the propaganda about whom they’re at war against. At first, it’s one, and then overnight it’s another. But worst of all is that no one acknowledges the change so that everyone is then left with the impression their own memories cannot be trusted.

And that’s where we seem to be right now. Some great realignment occurred over these past decades that we’re only now coming to grips with. And though many liberals and American “leftists” obsess about the danger of Trump to our collective memory and sense of history, they haven’t noticed how their memories and values had already shifted long before even Trump’s first presidency.