Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the leading contender for the Democrat party’s presidential nomination, the corporate media are gaslighting the public to a degree many of us never thought possible.

The latest Orwellian history rewrite is whether Harris was President Biden’s “border czar.”  One example is left-wing Axios, called out via real fact-checking and X community notes, now denying that Harris was Biden’s border czar. 

As Fox News reported, in the spring of 2021, Axios said, “The number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border has reached crisis levels. Harris, appointed by Biden as border czar, said she would be looking at the ‘root causes’ that drive migration.”

Now this week, Axios did a 180, rewriting history with this revision: “The Trump campaign and Republicans have tagged Harris repeatedly with the ‘border czar’ title — which she never actually had.”

What is a “czar”?  Technically, it is the Polish spelling for an emperor of Russia, “the ruler of Russia until the 1917 revolution,” as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. 

Informally, czars are government bureaucrats, “high-level executive-branch officials who oversee a particular policy field.  There have never been any U.S. government offices with the formal title ‘czar.’”

When did this term start?  “The earliest known use of the term for a U.S. government official was in the administration of Franklin Roosevelt (1933–1945), during which eleven unique positions (or twelve if one were to count ‘economic czar’ and ‘economic czar of World War II’ as distinct) were so described.”

“Czar” is not an actual government title.  You won’t find it in the U.S. Constitution or the Federal Register.  But when a government official, such as the vice president, is placed in charge of a particular policy, he is indeed a “czar” for that issue.

President Barack Obama had 13 “czars,” including an economic, drug, green jobs, and Afghanistan czar.

Let’s ask the “all the news that’s fit to print” New York Times about this czar business.  In April 2021, that paper reported, “Roberta S. Jacobson, the former ambassador to Mexico whom President Biden chose as his ‘border czar’ on the National Security Council, will step down at the end of the month.”

Jacobson was replaced by V.P. Harris.  “Mr. Biden announced that Vice President Kamala Harris would lead the government’s diplomatic efforts with that region.”

In other words, the new border czar. 

The AP confirmed: “President Joe Biden has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the White House effort to tackle the migration challenge at the U.S. southern border and work with Central American nations to address root causes of the problem.”

Despite Emperor Harris’s new title, she did nothing, as the N.Y. Post observed, “Where is Kamala?  Two weeks since being named border czar, Harris still hasn’t visited.”

The Daily Mail expressed similar thoughts: “Harris will take her first trip to survey the southern border between the U.S. and Mexico on Friday — even though she was named 'border czar' by the White House in March.”

By all definitions, Kamala Harris was the Biden administration’s border czar.  And she failed miserably, to the tune of 10,000 illegal migrants per day.  As CBS News reported last December,

In just five days last week, Border Patrol processed nearly 50,000 migrants who entered the U.S. illegally, with daily apprehensions surpassing 10,000 thrice, up from the 6,400 average last month, according to federal data obtained by CBS News. Roughly 1,500 additional migrants are being processed each day at official border crossings under a Biden program powered by a phone app.

Yet the media will tell you otherwise — that she was not what she was.

 As an aside, watch this bit of wit and wisdom, from the mistress of the married former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, also get sunk down the media’s memory hole.  She made some inconvenient comments about ten years ago as California’s attorney general.

Here’s Reuters rewriting history:

Harris can be heard saying in the 22-second snippet, “And it’s a specific phase of life, remember, age is more than a chronological fact. What else do we know about this population, 18–24? They are stupid. That is why we put them in dormitories, and they have a resident assistant. They make really bad decisions!”

Correct-think is that Harris was not the border czar and that she did not call Gen-Zers stupid.  Let’s see how that plays with her Gen Z paid social media influencers.

If this sounds like Mao’s China or Stalin’s Soviet Union, it is.  George Orwell wrote about totalitarianism.  In his novel 1984, he described exactly what we are seeing today:

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

Today we are no longer beholden to the network evening news and print newspapers.  The internet lasts forever.  Digital warriors can use alternative and social media to keep history alive, not allowing the ruling class, Deep State, or “party” (as Orwell describes it) to rewrite history.

When the paid Democrat shills on X or the corporate media outlets attempt to gaslight the public in an effort to influence an election, don’t let them.  Keep history alive by reminding everyone about past facts and events, as noted above.

Societies where “the party is always right” are dystopian hellholes.  Don’t let America follow that path.

Brian C Joondeph, M.D. is a physician and writer.
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Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.