'Room 101,' he said.

There was a gasp and a flurry at Winston's side. The man had actually flung himself on his knees on
the floor, with his hand clasped together.
'Comrade! Officer!' he cried. 'You don't have to take me to that place! Haven't I told you everything
already? What else is it you want to know? There's nothing I wouldn't confess, nothing! Just tell me
what it is and I'll confess straight off. Write it down and I'll sign it--anything! Not room 101!'
'Room 101,' said the officer.
The man's face, already very pale, turned a colour Winston would not have believed possible. It was
definitely, unmistakably, a shade of green.
'Do anything to me!' he yelled. 'You've been starving me for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot
me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you want me to give away?
Just say who it is and I'll tell you anything you want. I don't care who it is or what you do to them.
I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them isn't six years old. You can take the whole lot
of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch it. But not Room 101!'
'Room 101,' said the officer.
The man looked frantically round at the other prisoners, as though with some idea that he could put
another victim in his own place. His eyes settled on the smashed face of the chinless man. He flung
out a lean arm.
'That's the one you ought to be taking, not me!' he shouted. 'You didn't hear what he was saying
after they bashed his face. Give me a chance and I'll tell you every word of it. HE'S the one that's
against the Party, not me.' The guards stepped forward. The man's voice rose to a shriek. 'You didn't
hear him!' he repeated. 'Something went wrong with the telescreen. HE'S the one you want. Take
him, not me!'
The two sturdy guards had stooped to take him by the arms. But just at this moment he flung
himself across the floor of the cell and grabbed one of the iron legs that supported the bench. He
had set up a wordless howling, like an animal. The guards took hold of him to wrench him loose, but
he clung on with astonishing strength. For perhaps twenty seconds they were hauling at him. The
prisoners sat quiet, their hands crossed on their knees, looking straight in front of them. The
howling stopped; the man had no breath left for anything except hanging on. Then there was a
different kind of cry. A kick from a guard's boot had broken the fingers of one of his hands. They
dragged him to his feet.
'Room 101,' said the officer.
The man was led out, walking unsteadily, with head sunken, nursing his crushed hand, all the fight
had gone out of him.

Donald Trump is still sometimes depicted as impulsive and unpredictable. But this view is
mistaken. There is method – albeit an evil method – in his madness. His behaviour in the build-up to
next week’s US midterm elections highlights this side of the president. He has been consistent and
unscrupulous in pursuing it. Fearing that voters will elect an anti-Trump Congress on 6 November,
he has made a clear choice to use hate and division to bait and provoke his opponents into a
backlash which, he hopes, will energise white voters to support Republican candidates at the polls.

At least three of Mr Trump’s actions this week can only be adequately explained by this strategy. In
the first, he has ordered 5,200 active duty American troops to the US-Mexico border. The objective
here is not to respond to a crisis – several thousand National Guard are already there, as well as
border police – but to create one. Mr Trump wants to make a show of force against a caravan of
migrants from Central America, which he has mischievously described as an invasion and which he
has falsely said contains “unknown Middle Easterners”. Not only is this claim untrue, but the
caravan itself is daily shrinking in size and it is still in southern Mexico, weeks away from reaching
the US border. Mr Trump is using his nation’s troops as partisan political props.

The second example of Mr Trump’s cynicism is his response to the slaughter of 11 Jews in
Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. On Tuesday, as the first dead from the synagogue gun massacre
were being buried, Mr Trump was preparing to visit Pittsburgh in the teeth of widespread
opposition. Many families of the victims, along with Pittsburgh’s mayor, asked the president to stay
away. Pennsylvania’s two US senators, and congressional leaders of both parties, chose not to
accompany Mr Trump. But he was undeterred. He preferred to barge in and grandstand on a day of
private grief. Why behave this way? Not because he is a national uniter, as other presidents have
tried to be at such moments, but because he is a divider and a provoker.

This week’s third determination to create a crisis and to use it to frighten white voters to the polls
came in an interview released on Monday. Mr Trump has chosen this moment to try to end the right
to American citizenship of babies born in the United States to non-citizens. Mr Trump is himself the
son of an immigrant mother, the US constitution has recognised this birthright for over 150 years,
and it is doubtful he could simply order the change as he pretends. But the president could not be
clearer about his darker intentions. He is determined to do everything to make immigration – and
that means race – the explicit centrepiece of these elections.

Everything Mr Trump will say over the next seven days will be dedicated to this hate-filled strategy.
Even the exceptions prove the rule. After Christine Blasey Ford alleged that Brett Kavanaugh had
sexually assaulted her, Mr Trump called her a credible witness. Days later, he mercilessly mocked
her at a political rally. Now the same pattern has been repeated after pipe bombs were sent to
Democratic politicians. Mr Trump initially condemned the attacks as despicable. A day later he
complained that “this ‘bomb’ stuff” had got in the way of Republican mobilisation. The true Trump
does not hide for long.

Mr Trump is consistent, not inconsistent. He seeks to be the president of some of the people, not all
of them. A man who hates half of his country has no right to call for a unity that he does not believe
in and which, in a heartbeat, he is ready to trash and mock