What We Can Learn About Trump From Animal Farm

Going through my daughter’s messy piles in her room, I saw that she was reading Animal Farm by George Orwell for school. I hadn’t read it in decades. When I asked her what she got out of it, her eyes glazed over and she pretty much mumbled nothing. Wondering if I’d get some insight into today’s political catastrophe from the brilliant author of 1984, I thought it would be a good idea to re-read the book. Turns out this short allegory is frighteningly astute in being able to sum up in very simple terms how human nature leads inevitably, sooner or later, to the kind of incipient tyranny that we are facing in the Trump administration today.

When I excitedly came to my daughter to discuss the difficult but important truths I’d learned from the book, she showed no interest. How different, I wondered, was this 14-year-old girl from the average citizen? All too many people, if Orwell got it right, are too oblivious (or gullible) to know when they are being screwed over.

This led me to ask the question, was there a way that I could explain the book in a way that Maya – and maybe your average grown-up – would care about and get? That is the task I have set for myself – let’s see how I do . . .

Dear M,

The author of Animal Farm calls his book a “fairy story,” but there are no fairies, princes, or castles in this story. It is easy to read, and like so many movies you see these days, animals act and talk like people, which kind of makes it, if not a fairy story exactly, like a kid’s story. But Animal Farm is thought of as such a serious book that you have to read it in school when you are in eight grade! Why would Orwell write a serious book like a goofy kid’s story with talking pigs and geese?

What makes Orwell’s choice to write about talking animals is even weirder because the story that Orwell tells is actually a true one. It is the story of what happened in Russia about one hundred years ago. Now why would anyone care about that? It sure was important to Orwell at the time, but that is like ancient history now, right?

Well, the scary truth is, there are many things that are happening in our country right now that are like the terrible things that Orwell writes about in Animal Farm. Not only is the book about something that happened back then, but one of his main ideas in the book is that people are people and they pretty much act the same way no matter where or when they live. So, he is not only writing about what happened then but he is also writing about what people are like now and for always.

OK. He’s writing about what people are like, and there are things that happened then that are happening now. Still, why should anyone care? Good question! Well, do you like getting screwed over? Do you like when you are cheated? Do you like when things are unfair? What if the people who ran your school, or the people in your family, (I’m not saying this is true, I’m just saying, what if) were such good liars and cheaters that you wouldn’t even know you were getting screwed over until it was too late and there was no going back? Wouldn’t you hate that? Wouldn’t you think that was terribly unfair?

Well, what if the people who were in charge of the whole country were like that? What if people who ran the biggest companies in the world – who sold us our food, and our medicines, and the gas for our cars – were just the best liars and cheaters – and they convinced the people you loved that things that killed them – like cigarettes – were not dangerous at all and then they died because of this. Like your grandparents.

Or they made poison taste really good and put it in colorful packages so you’d really want it and not care, and then later in life it gave you a disease that would make you get heart attacks and strokes and lose your brains and feet? (Sorry to tell you this, but that poison is called sugar.)

Or they told you not to believe what every good scientist knows - that the pollution we are putting in the air is changing the climate in ways that can really hurt the Earth - so they can sell more stuff to pollute our atmosphere so the world burns up and chokes?

And what if the people in charge of the companies gave so much money to the people who ran the country that they just spread these bullshit lies in so many ways – on TV, on the internet – and because of this more and more people believed them?

And what if one way the people in charge kept you from paying attention to the terrible ways they were cheating and stealing from you (because this is the way they make lots and lots of money and make sure the average person doesn’t make enough to have a decent life) was to blame some, poor, innocent victim who had no power – like an immigrant with brown skin.

What if you were that poor, innocent person, or it was your mother, or your sister, or your friend? And what if the way the people in charge cheated was to blame you and your family for everything that went wrong because of their cheating and lying, and everyone else got really mad at you and your family, and starting calling you names, and beating you up, and maybe even throwing you out of the country when you didn’t do anything wrong at all except maybe be someone who wanted to live a decent life?

If all that was true - when you scream bloody murder about how unfair it is when you can’t get a chocolate milkshake for breakfast - if all that was true, would you care then?

Well, start caring girl, because that is exactly what is happening right now.

Now, when you care about something being unfair, you want it to stop right away, don’t you? If you, or your family, or friends were being treated unfairly, you’d want it to stop right now, wouldn’t you? Now what if the people in charge were so big and strong that you couldn’t stop them? How would that feel? Wouldn’t you want to figure out a way to stop them?

If the people in charge with all the money are such good cheaters and liars, and that’s the way they get away with everything, how can they be stopped? Well, this is where you come in. And this is the point of that dumb thing you do called school. I mean, after all, why go to school and learn all that useless stuff?

If there is one thing that you need to learn in school, if everything I said is true, it is to be able to separate the truth from the bull-crap. It is to be able to figure out when you are getting lied to and when you are hearing the truth. When you can do that, you have learned how to use that jello between your ears called you brain. It means you have learned how to think. And most importantly, think for yourself. And if we have any chance against this big, unfair machine, it’s going to start with you perfecting your sense of smell – that is, your ability to smell the doo-doo when someone is trying to sell it to you.

And that, my young friend, is where Animal Farm comes in. Because in this book, Orwell shows us how the liars do their thing. And they do it the same way today that they did it a hundred years ago. We have faster and fancier technology, but the con, the slick trick to pick your pocket and keep you quiet, is the same.

Here’s what happens in the book, and how we learn about how many people in power sooner or later use that power for bad reasons. . .

Things are not good on Manor Farm. The guy in charge is a lazy drunk, and he treats all the animals who work on the farm really badly.

One day an old boar named Major has a dream of a time when the animals will change things. If they could run their own farm, everyone would share everything, and tell the truth, and be fair, and everyone would take care of each other. He dreams of a time when all the cheaters and liars (the humans) are thrown out of business and so all the animals can have a better life. Of course, this sounds like a great idea!

Two pigs jump on this idea and convince the other animals that if they kick out the farmer, life will be great. Now this all sounds good, but in the end, it turns out not to be true. So, the first lesson is, be suspicious of anyone who says they can solve all your problems for you – that if you let them run the show there will be no more lying and cheating. And be especially suspicious of anyone who tells you they can fix your problems easily and quickly.

Major has a dream that the animals, once they get to be in charge, won’t act like the humans. But what really happens?

The animals don’t know when the rebellion will come and at first “they run into stupidity and apathy.” That’s what I’m trying to talk to you about here! Apathy means that the animals don’t care enough to put the effort into understanding how they are being screwed over, and the farmer takes advantage of this.

Then there is the horse that just cares about eating sugar and looking pretty. That is like all the people who care more about stuff and how they look than about whether the world is fair. They don’t really care about other people very much at all. They may look real good on the outside, but deep down inside their minds are small; they don’t try to learn, and grow or understand much of anything, and so are ignorant and bigoted. You’d never know it, but lots of respectable looking people are like this.

Then there is the raven who tells everyone they are going to go to Sugarcandy Mountain when they die, and lots of animals liked that story a lot, which distracts them from how they are getting taken advantage of. In our world, some people who say they are good Christian leaders are willing to make deals with bad people because they are what we call hypocrites. That is, someone who talks a whole lot about how good they are, but do lots of bad things. Watch out for very famous, very rich, religious leaders who say that bad people are chosen by God. Think about it.

But even though it was hard to get the animals interested, sooner or later the animals got their chance and threw the farmer out. At first, everything seemed great, and the pig leaders, Napoleon and Snowball, treated the animals wonderfully.

Everything was meant to be shared equally and they came up with some basic rules that would make sure that no one could lie and cheat and take unfair advantage of anyone else. But then it was noticed that the pigs took the milk for themselves without telling anyone. This was the first time they cheated and lied to the other animals.

Most of the good animals were willing to work so hard for something they believed in. And many people are like that, too. They work hard every day, and try to take care of their families. But the pigs, who were smarter than most of the animals, said they shouldn’t have to work in the fields themselves because they needed to run everything. This was their next lie, and the next time, after the milk, that they took advantage of everyone else.

But since the animals hadn’t gone to school, they were not able to think for themselves and so they bought this story hook, line, and sinker. Especially because there was one pig named Squealer who was so good at telling lies that he could convince you that white was black. Watch out for people who go on TV and speak for leaders and never answer the questions that they are asked. They are probably hiding something.

It turned out that there were many animals who were greedy and selfish and nothing could stop them from being this way. Also, though we don’t like to admit it, there were some animals who were smarter than others, and the ones who weren’t so smart could be made to believe or do anything, especially if they were told some dumb phrase that was easy to remember, like when the sheep learned, “four legs good, two legs bad!” Watch out for leaders who say the same things over and over that don’t really mean anything.

Then when the animals started to notice that the pigs were taking advantage of them, Squealer told them the lie that if the pigs didn’t do this it would bring back their enemy, the humans. The point here, my young friend who is trying to learn how to think for yourself, when someone tells you that you have to accept something bad because they are doing this to protect you from an enemy you can’t see, be very, very suspicious. It is, and has just about always been, bull.

Then something really bad happens in the book. Napoleon, one of the two lead pigs, has been secretly training some really mean dogs. When they are fully trained, they attack Snowball, Napoleon’s rival. Napoleon starts lying about Snowball, who was a really good pig, and starts to convince the animals that he was really not a friend but an enemy.

There are two lessons here. When someone starts telling you that someone who was really good, like a hero, wasn’t really brave, or a good leader who wanted the best for the people, is really bad, or when one day they tell you that a country was bad but now they are good, squint really hard. There’s probably some crap flying around.

Now most of the animals were suckers and bought the lies. So, there’s another lesson. Just because a bunch of people believe a lie doesn’t make it true.

Also, and more importantly, when a leader starts using force to scare or control people, that’s when we will really have to worry.

The next bad thing that happens is that Napoleon decides he will make all the decisions and no one will be able to disagree with him. This is the way that bad leaders control everything that people can know – and makes it possible for them to lie without having to worry that anyone will call them out. So, when a leader says that what it says in the newspaper is a lie and that the people who write the truth are “enemies of the people,” and that what he is saying is true – it’s up to you to figure out who is telling the truth.

Squealer, who speaks for Napoleon, tells the animals that the most important thing is obedience. When we are told that to be obedient is more important than fairness or the truth, and that whatever the leader does is right even when it is wrong, you can be pretty sure that things are not going in a good direction.

Before you know it, all the animals were working again like slaves. Though the leaders promised a wonderful new world when they got in charge, things pretty much stayed where they were for most of the animals.

Napoleon had put down the previous leaders for the rich way they lived, but soon enough he was living just like they were, and doing all the things that he criticized them for. The animals were never supposed to move into the farm house, but Napoleon and the top pigs ended up living there. It’s funny how our President criticized the last President because he golfed two times a year when he’s golfed six times in one month, and criticized the people in government for being cozy with rich bankers, when he’s surrounded himself with rich bankers.

More and more Napoleon would spread “fake news,” that is, he’d do something bad and then make up a lie that it was someone else’s fault. For example, he designed the windmill badly and so it got knocked down, but instead of saying it was his fault, he blamed Snowball. No matter how obvious it was that Napoleon had made up the story, most of the animals believed him – except for Benjamin the donkey, who thought for himself. So, watch out when things go wrong and a leader can never say that it was his fault – it is a sign of a sick mind, and certainly is never the truth.

If anyone opposed Napoleon, like the hens who didn’t like having so many of their eggs taken that they could barely have chicks, Napoleon ruthlessly destroyed them. So far, we’ve only seen our leader do that with words. Let’s hope he doesn’t start hurting people physically. But it still isn’t fair, and it really hurts when a leader can use really bad language to destroy anyone who doesn’t agree with his stupid or cruel ideas.

When Napoleon blames Snowball for things that go wrong, even after it was discovered that he had nothing to do with it, for example, when he was blamed for taking a key that was eventually found, and then Napoleon demanded a full investigation of Snowball, it was just like when Trump demanded a full investigation of Hillary, who did nothing wrong, while avoiding an investigation into his own bad behavior. And just like in Animal Farm, all the animals get behind the investigation of Snowball, because, well, they are fooled by Squealer and Napoleon’s nonsense. Sometimes, even you, dear reader, were fooled by what Napoleon and Squealer said . . .

Well, I could go on. But I think you get the idea. In the end the lives of the animals were worse than when they started. All the big promises that Napoleon made to the ordinary animals were broken. Instead of giving the hardest worker, Boxer, a reward by letting him have a good life when he was too old to work, he was slaughtered and the price the pigs get for his remains they use to buy themselves liquor.

In the end, some pigs are more equal than others, and you can’t tell the pigs apart from the bad humans.

So be careful of rich, fat, boastful men who promise much, blame others, never take responsibility for their own behaviors, and do everything they can to destroy anyone who disagrees with them. But most importantly, don’t believe what they say, especially if they are calling someone else a liar for pointing out something he did wrong. Learn how to think for yourself. How do you do that? Care. Pay attention. Read, do research, ask questions.

Now this isn’t to say that there is no good in the world, and that you shouldn’t trust anyone. Love is all around, and many of us are trying to make the world a better place, and to become better people, no matter how hard that is. It’s just that if you learn how to think, you can do a better job of figuring out who the good, honest people are, and how to behave yourself, and who are bad, lying sacks of shit, and how not to become a bad person.

This brings us back to our first question. Why bother? Well you see, Maya, it’s you the pigs are lying to, and nothing would make them happier than if you didn’t care, and didn’t think, and didn’t speak your mind, and were just obedient, because then they could any damn thing they please, and screw over you, and just about everyone else.

That’s what I learned about Donald Trump from Animal Farm.

For more, visit Glenn’s blog at www.glennberger.net or read NEVER SAY NO TO A ROCK STAR: IN THE STUDIO WITH DYLAN, SINATRA, JAGGER AND MORE (Schaffner Books, 2016).