Not at all. Mass surveillance to track and intimidate locals, brutal police tactics used to silence dissidents, and endless waves of misinformation to obliterate the historical record from memory are all tactics modern nation-states use to dominate a fractious public. Orwell was spot on in this regard. The rhetorical inventions of foreign adversaries advancing on our borders while a phantom menace undermines us at home have permeated Western discourse since the American Colonial Era. Hell, they go back to antiquity.

Almost every one of the few individuals we meet in 1984 has, as his job, the rapid rewriting of the past, the readjustment of statistics, the overhauling of newspapers - as though anyone is going to take the trouble to pay attention to the past anyway. This Orwellian preoccupation with the minutiae of 'historical proof' is typical of the political sectarian who is always quoting what has been said and done in the past to prove a point to someone on the other side who is always quoting something to the opposite effect that has been said and done. As any politician knows, no evidence of any kind is ever required. It is only necessary to make a statement - any statement - forcefully enough to have an audience believe it. No one will check the lie against the facts, and, if they do, they will disbelieve the facts. Do you think the German people in 1939 pretended that the Poles had attacked them and started World War II? No! Since they were told that was so, they believed it as seriously as you and I believe that they attacked the Poles.

Orwell makes much of 'Newspeak' as an organ of repression - the conversion of the English language into so limited and abbreviated an instrument that the very vocabulary of dissent vanishes. Partly he got the notion from the undoubted habit of abbreviation. He gives examples of 'Communist International' becoming 'Comintern' and 'Geheime Staatspolizei' becoming 'Gestapo', but that is not a modern totalitarian invention. 'Vulgus mobile' became 'mob'; 'taxi cabriolet' became 'cab'; 'quasi-stellar radio source' became 'quasar'; 'light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation' became 'laser' and so on. There is no sign that such compressions of the language have ever weakened it as a mode of expression. As a matter of fact, political obfuscation has tended to use many words rather than few, long words rather than short, to extend rather than to reduce. Every leader of inadequate education or limited intelligence hides behind exuberant inebriation of loquacity.

Orwell's 1984 is both a discussion of propaganda and a deeply influential work of propaganda.

That’s not exactly working in its favor. It’s a work of propaganda directed entirely and exclusively at the Soviet Union. That’s what the entirety of the “discussion” is framed around. I’m not sure how this is supposed to make it better than Inventing Reality.

What makes it the "go-to" when the topic has been flogged for over a century?

If being referenced in almost every “communism bad rant”, being on every literature curriculum in the country and being a literal synonym for authoritarianism doesn’t make it go-to then I don’t know what would.

Its a light read by any definition. Fairly short, fast paced, and with all the elements of a Hollywood Thriller. I didn't have any more trouble with 1984 than The Good Earth or Of Mice and Men. If anything, Orwell's complete lack of subtlety makes it fly by.

Orwell’s lack of subtlety made him come off like a redditor ranting about the Soviets. The terrible writing is like a bonus little turd on the side.

And then you have our modern understanding of war. Nations falling into and out of our sphere of influence shift from friends and allies to nefarious foes within a matter of months, if not days. How many Russian Resets have we endured since the collapse of the USSR? Nevermind detente under Nixon and Carter, or the muddled policies dating back to FDR. China is, similarly, described as on the verge of kicking off WW3 one minute and the lynchpin to a global consensus on this or that ecological concern the next. As one specter rises, the other retreats, in the same manner Orwell describes the perennial war between super-states. We're always winning, but never free from the threat of imminent defeat.

Orwell describes a world where superpowers are literally in a constant direct, non-proxy, peer-to-peer war. Needless to say this has not materialized. His point is that the communists and inscrutable orientals need to rely on war to exist. He’s not making some generic “propaganda contradicts itself” point. Yes alliances change and old friendships fade away but you can literally find pictures of old newspapers praising Bin Laden on the internet right now. The information is out there if you’re willing to look for it. This is practically the opposite of the world of 1984 where all of history has been erased by the conniving government. It reinforces the dubious “brainwashing” narratives that permeate the western world. Grand coverups obviously happen but the power of willful ignorance and refusal to acknowledge history is almost always good enough. Orwell obfuscates how propaganda really functions. Even when confronted with undeniable historical contradictions liberals will continue to insist on the propaganda line. It’s hidden in plain sight.

Orwell's description of the Two Minute Hate very neatly matches modern Talk Radio and Daytime TV. Whether we're in a Satanic Panic or a War on Christmas or a Trans Invasion, there's always some vaguely defined cohort of Others that we're supposed to instinctively revile. Whipping people up into a lather and marching them off in a fruitless protest until they're burned out is straight out of the CIA counterintelligence field manual

And conservatives use this example to demonstrate the supposed viciousness of “cancel culture”. As it stands it is evidently a commentary on the Great Purge. I guess you could interpret it that way but I don’t know why you must source this analogy from 1984.

Endless wars, chronic domestic shortages, brutal police violence, a steady erosion of the historical record, and a deliberate inflaming of tensions between races, genders, and religious cohorts are all endemic in modern western life.

Sure, if you ignore the obvious word-for-word USSR stereotype analogy that 1984 is, you get a generic “government bad” book that can be mapped onto any government someone doesn’t like. It’s a Barnum statement in novel form.

You need books like 1984 to lay out the methodology, both in the writing and in the utilization of the writing to displace blame. The history of the book tells a story of propaganda as well as the book itself.

We’ll just have to disagree here…