Um, what are you talking about? There were whole decades of Hollywood having the Reds as the default villain. Everything up to 2000s when they were replaced by middle easterners.

America was at war with the talibans: America had always been at war with the talibans. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs--all had to be rectified at lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with communism, or the alliance with the talibans, should remain in existence anywhere.

Except that all of this material (movies and TV, news articles, reports) is still available. I don't see how this adapted quote is at all applicable.

The whole point of the 1984 scenario was that people couldn't talk about the preceding period and no evidence supporting its existence could be found.

I'll go a step further: Not only is the evidence and history of US-Taliban relations all still there, but the accused-1984 people weren't even denying the history exists. They were, at worst, just glossing over it.

Let's suppose that there are five tiers on the spectrum of "good" to "1984": Acknowledge the history; Omit it; Contradict it, Erase it, Punish dissenters.

Prior to 2016 most US politicians never went past Omit.

> Prior to 2016 most US politicians never went past Omit.

Bush 2.0 did a good job of making the media toe the line by shutting out any dissenters. This was the beginning of the neo-con manipulation game.