George DeMuth: GOP doublethink

Recent events have me thinking about reading the George Orwell novel “1984” in high school. A key concept in “1984” is “doublethink,” which refers to accepting opposite beliefs at the same time as a result of political indoctrination.

First, Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr take part in a historically partisan action of stonewalling any hearing for President Obama’s Supreme Court justice nominee Merrick Garland under the guise that it is somehow nonpartisan to ignore the votes of the people who elected Obama and leaving the court incomplete for at least a year.

Then the party that argues for local state powers over federal powers passes a law specifically designed to limit local authority and the deny the ability of its residents to use state courts to pursue discrimination suits.

Are we also to believe less health care makes us healthier, less education makes us smarter and more regressive taxation makes the poor richer?

If this type of reasoning is causing us to experience some cognitive dissonance, please vote to remove it in November.

In the meantime, I probably owe my public high school teachers some credit for assigning “1984” and inoculating me against doublethink.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 5:41 PM with the headline "George DeMuth: GOP doublethink."