S2. Chapter 25: The Memory Hole (Part 1) — Erase

Erasing History: The Trump Administration's Memory Hole | Tao Te Ching Ch. 25

They didn't just remove a historical exhibit. A federal judge had to order them to put it back.

In Part 1 of The Memory Hole trilogy, Lloyd Dobler takes Chapter 25 of the Tao Te Ching and uses it to diagnose the Trump administration's favorite three-step wellness routine: delete the receipts, slap "unity" on the lie, and scream DOW 50,000 like it's moral absolution.

This episode is about erasure. The Stonewall flag. The Philadelphia slavery panels. The Smithsonian reframing directive. And the thing nobody in the outrage coverage is saying: we're not watching history get erased. We're watching the erasure of the erasure's correction. The memory hole has a memory hole inside it.

Featuring: Orwell (reluctantly), Oney Judge, Lao Tzu, and the witness protection program for your soul.

The Tao of Lloyd — from the edge of empire and the center of self.

Transcript

Welcome back, for Chapter 25.

Today’s episode is about the Trump regime’s new favorite three-step wellness routine: step 1: delete the receipts
step 2: slap “unity” on the lie, 
and step 3: if you call out the lie, how dare you! “the DOW is over 50,000!”

in related news:

A federal judge had to order the National Park Service to put back an exhibit about the people George Washington enslaved. That is just one recent headline in a blizzard of late stage everything headlines.

Not a “controversial” exhibit.
Not a “partisan” exhibit. Not an exhibit about vibes.
An exhibit about human beings who existed. Who had names. Who were forced to build the President’s House in Philadelphia with their bodies while the man who owned them was busy getting bronzed into the Father of a country built on their backs but didn’t include them.

And the Trump administration removed it.

Which means, and let’s be clear: the government tried to memory-hole the receipts.

And somewhere in the White House right now, some little Ministry of Truth intern is figuring out how to make sure the next removal sticks.

Because that’s the point. It's Making America Great Again by shredding the receipts and telling everyone it’s patriotic confetti.

It’s editing the national hard drive and then accusing anyone who remembers the old files as being “woke.” 

Like being awake is a fucking crime. 

Hello everyone: I'm Lloyd Dobler. Yeah, the boombox kid all grown up. 

And this is The Tao of Lloyd: a podcast where I take the Tao Te Ching, one chapter at a time, and use it as a flashlight in the memory hole.

Which … okay. I know.

I know. Memory Hole. Ministry of Truth. 1984.

Every podcast, every newsletter, every guy nursing a craft beer with a Substack and a grievance is reaching for Orwell right now. And here I am. Also reaching for Orwell. I want you to know how much that pains me. I want you to know I stood at the shelf for a full three seconds before I grabbed the book.

But here's the thing.

The memory hole isn't a metaphor anymore.

It's a job description.

The Trump administration isn't just removing a flag at Stonewall National Monument. It isn't just scrubbing exhibits at the Smithsonian. It isn't just erasing the names of enslaved people from the walls of the President’s House site in Philadelphia.

It's doing what the Ministry of Truth does.

Erase. Replace. Repeat.

And we're in Part 1.

Erase.

The slavery exhibit at the President’s House site in Philadelphia was not the original exhibit.

The original exhibit didn't mention slavery at all.

The panels that named the people Washington enslaved, those were added later. After years of activism. After people showed up and said: this site is incomplete. This story is a lie by omission. Put the whole truth on the wall.

So what the Trump administration removed wasn't the liberal revision of a conservative original.

It was the correction of an erasure.

Which means we're not watching history get erased.

We're watching the erasure of the erasure's correction.

The memory hole has a memory hole inside it.

It’s a hall-of-mirrors algorithm: the lie refreshes, the correction disappears, and you’re left scrolling in circles.

The Smithsonian has been ordered to submit exhibit plans, placards, labels, and digital content for White House review. One source described the goal as to, and I'm quoting here, "reframe the entire culture of the United States from the foundation up."

That's not a policy.

That's a renovation.

That's new drywall over the bones.

And the bones are us. The bones are the people this country was built on and then built over. The bones are Oney Judge, who ran from George Washington because she heard he was going to give her to his granddaughter as a wedding gift. The bones are the people at Stonewall in 1969 who threw bottles at police because they were tired of being raided, arrested, and erased — and who now have a national monument that just had its flag quietly taken down by the people their monument was supposed to outlast.

So what do you do when the official story is a lie, not because someone made it up, but because someone took the truth down off the wall?

Let's settle in, for a brief meditation and the reading from chapter 25 of the Tao Te Ching. Cuz if the government is going to gaslight an entire nation, then meditation isn’t some Malibu, Rick Rubin rich white privileged artsy thing, it’s the witness protection program for your soul.

So … Close your eyes.

Or don't.

I'm still not your spiritual advisor.

But seriously… unless you're currently an archivist at the Smithsonian frantically making backup copies of exhibit labels before the White House review team shows up with a red pen and a mandate, just close your eyes and start the journey within.

Take a long, slow breath in through the nose...

...and let it go.

Like you're exhaling the official version.

Good.

5. THE TAO VERSE

(Bell chime.)

This is Chapter 25 of the Tao Te Ching.

There was something formless and perfect 
before the universe was born. 
It is serene. Empty. 
Solitary. Unchanging. 
Infinite. Eternally present.
 It is the mother of the universe. 
For lack of a better name,
I call it the Tao.

It flows through all things, 
inside and outside, and returns 
to the origin of all things. 

The Tao is great. 
The universe is great. 
Earth is great. 
Humanity is great. 

These are the four great powers. 

Humanity follows the earth. 
Earth follows the universe. 
The universe follows the Tao. 
The Tao follows only itself.

(Bell chime.)

Open your eyes.

There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born.
Not before America was born.
Before the universe.

That’s Lao Tzu’s opening move in Chapter 25—and it quietly kneecaps what this administration is trying to sell. Because the whole “Make America Great Again” project depends on the idea that there was an original, pure America you can crawl back to if you just delete enough panels, scrub enough labels, and call enough people “divisive.”

Again is whitewashing the past. 

But Chapter 25 says: the only thing that existed before everything else is the Tao—
and the Tao is formless. Unnamed. Unownable.
You don’t get to put a flag on it.
You don’t get to submit it for White House review.
You don’t get to decide which parts are “unifying” and which parts are “divisive.”

The Tao follows only itself.

And that’s the counter-move to the memory hole.

Because truth doesn’t have to be managed.
Only propaganda does.
Only power does, when it’s nervous.

So sure: you can remove the panels.
You can take down the flag.
You can send the Smithsonian a directive and call it “oversight.”
You can feed the correction into the incinerator and reprint the original lie.

But Oney Judge still ran.
The people at Stonewall still fought back.
The bones are still in the walls.

The truth doesn’t stop being true because someone took it off the wall.
It just becomes harder to find.
And harder to find is the point—hard enough that the next generation grows up with a hole where the story was… and doesn’t even know to ask what used to be there.

That’s the MAGA regime’s move.
Erase.
Then they will Replace.
Then they will Repeat.

Next time: Part 2. Replace.

And until then, notice the mechanism before it becomes the air we breathe.
Before “make America great again” sounds like a lullaby.

From the edge of empire and the center of self—
this is The Tao of Lloyd.