Unlike in “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” however, the Party we live under is not all-powerful. It can be stopped, if we stop accepting its lies — if, after 75 years, we heed Orwell.

That’s too bad. Benen, a producer of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, pays homage to George Orwell in Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.

George Orwell's classic novel of dystopia, "1984," showed monolithic government using artificial intelligence and surveillance to create a totalitarian society. Here are 10 ways this is relevant ...

Many other dystopian novels carry similar warnings. So why does 1984 have such staying power? Orwell’s novels “all have exactly the same plot,” says the author’s biographer D.J. Taylor.