Memory holes are, alas, familiar to us all. There in the grocery store we encounter a familiar face; what is her name? Where are those car keys? These instances of our inability to immediately recall are vexations that appear more frequently with age and are by no means of our own design. They have to do with the neurologic processes during which short-term memory is stored and later converted into long-term memory. These are inadvertent memory holes.

Over the summer of 2024, we saw the ascent of deliberate memory holes. Holes strategically punched in the text of our collective short- and longer-term recall of events. Unlike inadvertent memory holes, these are collaborative, premeditated and well-curated memory holes. In George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” many of us were first introduced to deliberate memory holes. Winston Smith worked in the Ministry of Truth. Through a series of pneumatic chute-like devices, Winston and his colleagues erased thoughts, impulses and desires that were subversive to the Party. Big Brother was able to maintain control over information and history. Winston was charged with rewriting records and reconfiguring events to fill in the gaps to comport with the propaganda of the Party. Memory holes were closed, a narrative was created. These fictions entirely replaced the less well-groomed truth and in Orwell’s kingdom of Oceania the seas were calm and always undisturbed.

Orwell’s “1984” now feels prophetic. We began this summer with endless handwringing about the threats to democracy. The progressives spoke with furrowed brows about how former President Donald Trump and his MAGA colleagues were committed to undermining elections and usurping power. At the time, President Joe Biden had secured the Democratic nomination after 14 million Democrats cast their votes for him in the primaries. None of the voters had any alternative, as the Democratic Party had ensured there was no opposition. Then came the calamitous June debate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer assured us that Vice President Kamala Harris wanted to earn the party’s nomination, from the bottom up. As it turned out, the party elites gathered among themselves and selected Harris as the standard bearer without a single vote having been cast for her.

As Harris’ campaign began, the sheer brazenness of memory-holing and gap-filling was breathtaking. We in Pennsylvania vividly recall her vow to ban fracking in her 2019 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. In a CNN interview on August 29 Dana Bash coquettishly asked about the fracking ban. Harris reminded us that she had been clear at the 2020 vice-presidential debate that she supported fracking. What Harris actually said was that Biden would not ban fracking, and nothing about her own policy. No problem. No follow-up then or since. We no longer need Winston Smith in the Ministry of Truth as we now have the doe-eyed Cocker Spaniels in the media to fill in the gaps left by memory-holing.

So it has gone. Now Harris is a tough urban prosecutor, convicting transnational criminals as they cross the southern border. Yet in 2019 she told us that illegal border crossings should no longer be a crime. Under her administration from January 2021 to date, some 10 million individuals have illegally crossed the border with impunity. When asked about this during her single interview with CNN, there again was the furrowed brow, the earnest countenance as she reminded us that we have laws and violating them has consequences. With that the 3.5 years of utter dereliction of duty to protect American sovereignty at the southern border is memory-holed and cast into the incinerator by the modern Winston Smiths in the media.

We are told that the internet has memory. Yet GovTrack, a website that ranks the political leanings of U.S. senators, had Harris as the most liberal senator in 2019. On their website now that ranking is gone, memory-holed without a trace. When asked about that, the website’s curators said only one year’s performance was insufficient to establish that ranking. It had been enough until Harris became the presumptive nominee.

Real memory-holing requires this level of engagement by the media and press. Weeks and weeks pass by without reporters asking even one question of her. What spell has been cast upon them? In “1984,” Winston was able to single-handedly memory-hole errant thought. Now it takes the pacification of the press corps, the sleight of hand of barons of the internet and the all-in participation of the legacy media. In this Summer of Memory Holing, all those prerequisites have been met. Harris is being reincarnated before our eyes. One by one, all the evidence of her hard-left past has been memory-holed. With that remake, her popularity has soared. Adoring crowds have gathered. Now she wants both windmills and natural gas. She sees the need now for a border wall. No longer the need to eliminate private health insurance. Forget promoting bail funds for arsonists and rioters; now she’ll punish lawbreakers.

Yet even with all that shedding of skin, the best prophet of the future remains the past. Once elected, there will come the hard lurch to port. Government will expand into every nook and cranny of our lives. Ronald Reagan wisely made the point that we are always just one generation away from losing our freedom. The summer of 2024 could well be the prelude to the autumn of 2024 when our liberty itself is memory-holed.

Dr. Bryan C. Donohue (bcdonohue@outlook.com) is a cardiologist based in Pennsylvania.