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Welcome to Michael and us. I'm Will Sloan. Here is always with Luke Savage. Welcome back everyone.

I'm sorry, literally like two seconds before I I pressed record my domestic partner sent me a news item that is related to the one reality show that we watch regularly, which is Vanderpump rules.

By the way, if you hear the pitter-patter of little feet in the background, that's that's my dog who's come to the Gory Lieberman studios with us today.

Yeah, he goes on third Mike this episode, but I can't I can't believe it. I'm sorry. I'm looking at this now. It's like I need to sit down. Tom sand of all an area animatics call it quits allegations. He cheated with co star Raquel levis. I don't know. This is in the New York Times. I assume you're reading this. The New York Review of books actually there's a 5,000 word essay by George Packer about what it all means. No, I mean, what can I say? I'm just very sad. I'm a huge fan of Vanderpump rules. And more than that, even more than that

I've been a huge fan of Tom sand of all an area animatics is relationship. I mean, all the storm clouds that have descended upon the friend group, you know, all of the cheating left and right when Tom and Katie's marriage collapsed, which let's let's face it. We all saw that coming from a mile away. The chemistry was not there. That's Tom Schwartz, by the way, not Tom sand of all, but but now I mean, I mean, God, we followed their their relationship the whole time. We saw how area

on a rescued Tom from his go nowhere toxic relationship with Kristen pointed to a whole new direction. I don't know what I'm going to do. What are we going to do? What are we going to do? All right, stand by folks. I think we'll needs a minute.

All right, guys, I'm back ready to face a new day. So what's been on your mind, Luke? I mean, I was just at a protest for Scott Adams right now. Very relevant to the movie that we watched today about how how the thought police are out to get you. Yeah, let's let's clear the ground right away here. This is the 1984 episode. We're going to be talking about the film version of George Orwell's novel of the same name in reading the essay that accompanies a film in the book.

That comes with the criteria in addition. It's it's a very good essay. I don't want to knock it. But you're going to knock it. Well, it exhibited a particular tendency that I feel like has really irritated me over the last five or six years. I mean, really since 2016, a kind of hyper topical way of engaging with almost any issue or object or conversation or subject of any kind. Oh, you mean in the age of Trump in the age of Brexit?

Exactly. So I mean, did I tell you back when we did, I forget which episode, but it was on some kind of a German film from the the Weimar period, possibly Fritz Lang, something like that. And I remember that week, you know, I just found by searching on my podcast app, like a lecture about Weimar Germany, given by some expert, you know, for, you know, Bard College or something is like, wow, like leading expert on Weimar Germany.

And I start listening to it. And the guy spends the first 15 minutes talking about, you know, how important this period is to study in the age of Trump. And I turned it off. I have no idea what that was kind of for like for six years. In fact, probably still now, like that was your one weird trick to make anything relevant. No matter what it was, if you just just fed it into the Trump machine, there was your take. Yeah. And so, you know, similarly, this essay, you know, which is not a bad essay, but it falls into this by time you get to the, you know, last few paragraphs. And you

know, you start getting the inevitable references to fake news and Brexit and that kind of thing. And look, I understand why people do this. If you're tasked with, you know, presenting something like this as a writer, obviously want to try to make it relevant for people. But it

irks me because when you have a subject that's as interesting as George Orwell's 1984 on hand, I just don't think it's necessary. And it feels, I don't know, very trivializing to kind of just introduce all of these little kind of topical, you know, in the age of Brexit with its, you know, manipulation of language and things. And of course, right.

Alternative facts. Right, right. We'll think of fake news. So I found out this week that sales of 1984, absolutely skyrocketed after Trump's election, they skyrocketed again after the alternative facts incidents

specifically. I mean, I have to come clean here. You want to know what year I read 1984? It was 2017.

But the other thing is that, of course, right wing people do this as well in their own way. And we're going to engage with this a little more

substantively later in the conversation. Well, yeah, I was just about to say it's like why focus on Brexit in your assay when actually what 1984 predicted was the woke mafia, cancel culture,

right, predicted my damn grandkids, who are who are changing their pronouns, just like how Eurasia used to be at war with Oceana, but now Oceana has never been at war with East Asia.

George Orwell, and in particular, the novel 1984 have become just sort of these floating signifiers among like the, the dumbest parts of the post mega right,

brought enough that you can now shoehorn like any right wing grievance imaginable into them. So like just to give you an example on January 6th, you know, the January 6th, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, we are living in Orwell's 1984 free speech no longer existed America.

It died with big tech and what's left is only there for chosen few. So that was after Twitter suspended at real Donald Trump. Josh Holly, after his contract was rescinded or canceled by Simon and Schuster,

he invoked 1984, he talked about, yeah, you know, it's an example of quote, let the left looking to cancel everyone they don't approve of.

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