Vince McMahon - The Great Dictator?

Many people accuse Vince McMahon of being out of touch and behind the times but I think he is stuck in 1984.
Not so much the year but the book, it's almost as if Vince has adopted many of the tactics that "The Party" used to create his own totalitarian dictatorship.
Don't believe me? Then read on to see the similarities in tactics:


Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

Vince understands this better than anybody else in the industry so he wisely purchased as many tape libraries as he could get a hold of, this will likely continue when any major company goes out of business (ie Roh or TNA).

This also allows him to create any legend he wants, he can underplay Hulk Hogan and Bruno Sammartino's contribution to his company while making the Rock seem like the biggest star of all time to help sell his Wrestlemania match with John Cena. He's also pretended that that HHH and The Undertaker had never met at Wrestlemania and claimed that Snitsky was undefeated.




Unperson
Vince therefore has the power to make many former stars an "Unperson" by erasing them from history, the most obvious example of this is removing all references to Chris Benoit.

Merely mentioning such people's name is considered a thoughtcrime and won't be tolerated by WWE, that's why there was genuine shock when CM Punk mentioned Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman on air.








Create an external threat/Perpetual War

In 1984 the world is in a state of perpetual war, these external threats make people more loyal to the party and also makes them accept a lower standard of living.


Vinve realised this is another valuable tactic, by using WCW, the PTC (RTC), the brand-split, the NWO or Nexus as an external threat he is able to make customers loyal to WWE and make them forgive any issues with his programming.



Newspeak
“Beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ”

Newspeak is based on English but has a greatly reduced vocabulary. The Party aims to make any alternative thinking impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe such ideas ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on.
Vince realises that this is a valuable tactic and has set about creating a list of approved WWE words.

One of the first things to go was the commentators calling the names of moves, people can't say they preferred it when there were more t-bone suplexes or texas colverleafs if they don't know what they're called. As a result commentators now just tell the story and bicker amongst themselves, when they have to comment on the in-ring action they use terms like "modified slam/submission/suplex" or Vince's old favourite "What a maneuver!".

He also likes replaces industry staples with his own versions, so wrestling becomes sports entertainment, the crowd/fans become the "WWE universe and championships can't be refered to as belts.

Turning Children against their parents
The Party has a Hitler youth style movement that attempts to break the bond between parent and child, maybe WWE are trying the first stages of this with John Cena, just listen as the kids chant "Let's go Cena" and the adults respond with "Cena Sucks". OK that one is stretching it a bit.

Ministry of Darkness Love

This is where the party torture, brainwash and re-educate anybody that opposes their doctrine.
WWE don't have an exact replica of this but do like to send new superstars to FCW to be re-educated in the WWE style. They also tend to dislike outsiders and rarely fully get behind somebody that was made famous by another organisation (see the invasion). They also torture outsiders and dissidents with bad gimmicks, losing streaks or by making them look stupid.