“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” —George Orwell, 1984

This quote from George Orwell’s 1984 has been doing the rounds across social media in light of the actions taken by the Trump administration following the killings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis. 1984 is one of the quintessential works within the dystopian genre, as it expertly depicts propaganda, extreme surveillance, totalitarianism, and the erosion of truth. The book follows Winston Smith, a low-ranking member of ‘the Party’, who is frustrated by the pervasive eyes of the party and its ruler, Big Brother. In the book, Orwell depicts a hypersurveillance state, where truth is whatever the Party or Big Brother says it is. 

ICE in Minneapolis

Following the Trump administration’s response to the murder of Alex Pretti, more equivalences are being made to Orwell’s novel. 

Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old American intensive care nurse for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, was shot multiple times and killed in broad daylight by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. This is the second ICE killing in Minneapolis, as it comes just weeks after Renee Good, a 37-year-old American woman, was also shot and killed by an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross. In both incidents, ICE agents acted out of control and took fatal measures that were not necessary. 

The Ministry of Truth

Following Renee’s killing, a statement by the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, was reiterated by the Department of Homeland Security account on X. In the statement, Miller says, “To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. Anybody who lays a hand on you, tries to stop you or obstructs you is committing a felony. You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one—no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist—can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties”.

The Trump administration was also quick to label her a ‘domestic terrorist’, with the president taking to Truth Social to claim that she was ‘very disorderly, obstructing and resisting’ and then ‘violently, willfully, viciously ran over the ICE agent who seems to have shot her in self-defence’. Video footage from the incident, however, shows that this was not the case; in fact, the last thing Renee said was “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you”. Renee Good presented no threat, and neither did Alex Pretti.

Contrary to the defamatory claims made by the Trump administration, Pretti was holding his phone, not a gun, before he was beaten down and pepper sprayed. Alex Pretti was defending a woman who was being manhandled by ICE agents. There are several videos from witnesses that multiple, credible news sources have analysed and verified, which do not support claims made by the administration; in fact, they leave no room for deniability or a different version of events. 

There are stark parallels between the actions taken by Big Brother’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ and the Trump administration’s response to the ICE killings. In the novel, the Ministry of Truth concerns itself with lies; it is a deliberate contradiction. It is responsible for the propaganda of the Party through rewriting history and controlling the news media, entertainment, education, and the fine arts.

Trump is a known liar, but what we are seeing here is the erasure of truth at a systemic level. Much like the Ministry of Truth, the entire administration is promoting the same lies that brandish the victims of these shootings as ‘domestic terrorists’ and thus justify the actions taken by these ICE agents. Vice President JD Vance reposted a statement by Stephen Miller claiming that Pretti was ‘an assassin’ who ‘tried to murder federal agents’. 

What’s worse is that we live in the digital age, governments and law enforcement have great means of surveillance at their disposal, but citizens can also surveil them when things like this happen with their phones. Instead of waiting for bodycam footage from the perpetrator, victims and witnesses can have their own footage. There is an abundance of credible evidence from the people who witnessed Alex Pretti’s execution that contradicts the version of events that the administration has concocted. This strategy of plausible deniability is merely an attempt for ICE as an agency to escape accountability to ensure it can continue carrying out Trump’s mission. 

Arendt in Orwell and Reality

Hannah Arendt can help us understand this tactic of lying. She talks about facts being fragile because they are contingent, which means that there is always a possibility for alternative realities. For example, in her book ‘Between Past and Future’, she states: “Since everything that has actually happened in the realm of human affairs could just as well have been otherwise, the possibilities for lying are boundless, and this boundlessness makes for self-defeat”.

With regards to the ICE killings, the administration is able to lie because many people can conceive an alternative story where the ICE agents were acting in self defense, where Alex Pretti did pull again, where Renee Good was a hired agitator part of a wider left wing conspiracy tasked with assaulting law enforcement. Though the evidence shows that this was the case, it still could have been, the very possibility of it enables this alternative reality to take off.

We see it in 1984 when the Ministry of Truth constantly contradicts itself through altering historical records, changing wartime alliances from Eastasia to Eurasia, fabricating the existence of “Comrade Ogilvy,” and revising economic forecasts. This is all possible due to the contingency of facts. 

In 1984, Orwell takes it further by eroding what Arendt labels a rational truth. A rational truth pertains to mathematical, scientific or philosophical truths that are actively discovered and independent of opinion. These truths are harder to erode because there is no alternative imagination. In 1984, Big Brother coerced the citizens in Oceania into believing the mathematical falsehood that 2+2=5. 

Now the administration has not gone to such extremes yet but it is not hard to imagine a world in which they do because the scale at which they are already twisting the truth is a very slippery slope. The administration cannot be allowed to lie about these killings; ICE agents and the organisation must face accountability.