Explanation: For those fortunate enough to not understand US politics, skip this explanation and spare yourself the misery.

For those of you who understand US politics (you have my sympathies) but would still like a little elaboration on the joke, in the USA, the Republican Party is the conservative/fascist party which is opposed to the other major party, the Democratic Party, whom they deride as ‘liberals’. Anything left of Hitler is condemned as ‘socialism’, and incredibly stupid arguments are pushed forward using meaningless wordplay that appeals to idiots ("We’re a republic, not a democracy!”, “We’re the party of Lincoln!") in the public sphere. They regularly get around 50% of the vote, including in the last presidential election, which they won.

It’s a pretty shit situation.

George Orwell is a famous author, who wrote the novel 1984 as a condemnation and warning about totalitarianism. 1984 is a constant refrain of Republicans who see the novel as a critique of goberment and socialism, specifically.

George Orwell was a lifelong socialist. And not a quiet one. For that matter, he was a socialist who fought for Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War, against Nationalist Spain. Republican Spain was dominated by left-wing parties (including the literal Communist Party associated with the Soviet Union), Orwell literally entered into combat alongside anarcho-communists, and wrote very firmly in their defense.

REPUBLICAN Spain! Don’t you get it, LIBERAL? Socialists OWNED and SOLD as HUMAN CHATTEL 😎😎😎😎😎😎😎

From what I remember of Homage to Catalonia: Orwell was very much ideologically aligned with the anarchists. In the first half he is overjoyed by the dissolution of classism and the revolutionary atmosphere on the front.

Then in the second half he rotates away from the front and is dismayed by the factionalism and infighting in Barcelona, the blame for which he laid largely at the feet of the communists backed by the USSR. His brigade were declared fascist sympathisers and were arrested in secret while his comrades continued to hold the line, his friend was arrested and mistreated, Orwell tried to free him, failed and fled the country.

I think it’s fair to say Orwell had great sympathy for anarchist and socialist causes, but claiming he supported the soviet backed communists is only technically true. During one specific part of his life they were allies, but after the Soviets betrayed their comrades in the Spanish civil war they earned lifelong entity from Orwell.

1984 condemns totalitarianism and control over what people are allowed to think and know rather than specifically facism (I think oceania may have been communist coded?), animal farm is overtly about how a noble revolution is corrupted from within by the power hungry who impose worse conditions while still adorning themselves with the language and symbolism of revolution and equality.

Disclaimer; it has been a while since I have read any of the 3 books, I’m happy to be corrected if you think I am mis characterising something in the