NARRATIVE MAINTENANCE IS HARD WORK: Seth Barrett Tillman: Orwell’s Newspeak and The Observer.

Orban was elected by the voters of Hungary. So it is difficult to see why meeting with him should be construed as an offense against democracy. One might as well posit the opposite: that failing to meet with an elected leader is a sign of contempt for normal democratic institutions. Of course, Tisdall, the editorialist, does not speak to anything like common or ordinary democracy; rather, he speaks in terms of something else—something more enlightened, more complex, and more nuanced: European democracy. The EU is a parliamentary “democracy” that lives and breathes absent anything like meaningful responsible government. What Tisdall means is that Orban—although popular with actual voters in his own country—among people who have an incentive to know precisely what Orban is up to—remains an object of suspicion among the bureaucrats in Brussels and among members of the European Parliament from countries other than Hungary. What Tisdall does not understand is that it is he who is illustrating a contempt for ordinary democracy and ordinary voters.

Oh, I think he understands.

Flashback: Donald Trump is a symptom of a new kind of class warfare raging at home and abroad.