If you’ve ever read George Orwell’s 1984, you’ll remember its chilling slogans: War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

These haunting lines illustrate how authoritarian regimes manipulate truth, distort reality, and demand absolute loyalty.

Disturbingly, America in 2025 under Donald Trump seems to be echoing these Orwellian tactics—where truth is dismissed as falsehood, lies are packaged as reality, and even something as serious as military planning is treated as a mere technicality.

The ‘Signalgate’ Scandal and Its Dangerous Implications

The latest controversy, dubbed Signalgate, revolves around Defense Secretary Pete “Hapless” Hegseth, who reportedly shared the precise details of upcoming U.S. airstrikes against Houthi militants in Yemen through Signal—a commercial messaging app.

Instead of using highly secure government channels, he posted sensitive military plans to a chat group filled with senior cabinet members and security officials.

Leaked excerpts from these messages are shockingly precise:

12:15: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)
14:15: Strike drones on target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP)
15:36: F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.

It doesn’t take a military expert to recognize that this is classified information of the highest order.

If it had fallen into the wrong hands, American lives could have been lost.

And yet, not a single person in that Signal chat raised concerns about sharing top-secret military strategy in an unsecured group chat.

Deflection, Denial, and the Attack on Journalism

In any normal administration, an official responsible for such an egregious security breach would either resign in disgrace or be fired immediately.

But in Trump’s America, that’s not how things work.

Instead of addressing the glaring lapse in national security, the administration has embarked on a relentless gaslighting campaign.

Hegseth flat-out denied sharing war plans, insisting that no classified information had been compromised.

The White House backed him up, repeating the same narrative—no wrongdoing, no security breach, nothing to see here.

Meanwhile, the administration turned its attention toward discrediting the journalist who broke the story, The Atlantic’s editor Jeff Goldberg.

Trump labeled Goldberg a “sleazebag” leading a “media witch hunt.”

His supporters dismissed the journalist’s presence in the chat as a “hoax” and accused him of sensationalism.

Sound familiar? It’s classic authoritarian playbook: when caught red-handed, attack the messenger instead of addressing the message.

An Orwellian Reality: Lies Becoming Truth

This attempt to bury reality is eerily reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984, where history is rewritten to fit the ruling party’s needs.

In Trump’s administration, repeating a lie often enough transforms it into an unquestionable truth.

We’ve seen this strategy before—remember when Trump claimed his 2017 inauguration had the largest crowd in history, despite overwhelming photographic evidence to the contrary? Press Secretary Sean Spicer was sent out to defend the claim, and when confronted, senior adviser Kellyanne Conway coined the now-infamous term: alternative facts.

Now, the same tactics are being used to rewrite Signalgate as a non-event, even though the facts are clear.

Foreign Policy and the New World Order

Beyond domestic politics, Trump’s global strategy also reflects a disturbing realignment of power. In 1984, the world is divided into three superstates—Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia—constantly shifting alliances in a never-ending war.

Trump’s approach to foreign relations eerily mirrors this vision.

Rather than opposing authoritarian regimes, he seems keen to divide the world between Russia, China, and the U.S., embracing a new era of geopolitical deal-making where democracy takes a backseat.

His treatment of Ukraine exemplifies this—offering a deal that strongly favors Russia while leaving Ukraine in a precarious position.

Erosion of Civil Liberties

Domestically, there are other troubling signs. Deportations have surged, with little concern for due process.

Venezuelan street gangs are being swiftly expelled—fair enough—but the criteria for identification are worryingly vague.

In one case, deportation was reportedly based on a tattoo that may have simply been a soccer team logo.

Even more disturbing, a Turkish postgraduate student with a valid visa was abruptly detained and deported under suspicion of pro-Hamas sentiments.

Her supposed crime? Co-authoring an anti-Israel article for her university newspaper.

When foreign academics are being whisked away in unmarked cars for expressing opinions, the alarm bells should be deafening.

The Road Ahead: Will America Wake Up?

Orwell warned that “all tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force.”

While America is still a functioning democracy, the warning signs are impossible to ignore.

Trump’s America is increasingly defined by misinformation, authoritarian tendencies, and a willingness to attack dissent rather than confront uncomfortable truths.

How this ends will depend on whether Americans recognize the Orwellian writing on the wall—and decide to do something about it before it’s too late.