Trump has been doubling down on his assertions about reducing drug prices. Of course, that’s one of the “socialist” policies that Harris was attacked over during the campaign, but if we know nothing else about Trump, it’s that he is not pro-capitalism by anyone’s definition. The fact that his MAGA base supports whatever he does no matter where it falls on the freedom-authoritarian spectrum isn’t at all surprising.
And Trump hasn’t done anything meaningful, other than send a strongly worded letter to pharmaceutical companies about lowering prices. So it’s just more performative posturing.
But it’s the math that really gets me.
He keeps talking about reducing drug prices by 800%, 1,000%, 1,200%, 1,500%. Of course, that’s incredibly stupid. Reduce a price by 100% and it becomes $0. Reduce it by more than 100%, and it’s negative. Anyone with a grasp of simple math understands that fact.
I’m reminded of a very pertinent quote from Orwell’s 1984. It begins like this:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it.
I think that’s where we’re at today. Does Trump believe these numbers? I don’t know. I don’t think it matters. Because his MAGA cult followers will nod their head and amplify this message and boast ad nauseam on social media about the incredible thing Trump is doing. And they have to, because what else can they do? If they allow the simple fact that reducing a drug price by 1,500% would mean that someone is paying them to take it, their narrative would fall apart.
For some of them, I’m sure it’s a deliberate and fully conscious process. They’re the influencers, the ones who are benefitting financially from the process and who are positioning themselves for whatever America will look like if the process of dismantling America’s Constitution republic is successful.
But I think for millions of MAGA, it’s deeper and scarier than that. I think they’re in that phase that Orwell warned about, where it’s not just the Party making demands but their minds being thoroughly corrupted by the process.
Orwell nailed it, really, when you consider the full quote:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
I can think of no better explanation for so many people maintaining such a false view of reality than that they simply don’t think reality exists outside of their minds. In this specific case, it’s not just believing a lie because of a lack of reliable information, as with so many of Trump’s narratives. Here, everything we need to know to arrive at the truth is right in front of us, and yet so many people still believe the falsehood.
For me, that’s the essence of our post-truth era where a man like Donald Trump can compel people to accept that two plus to make five.