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   These commandments are engraved in the barn wall, and were written by the pigs, who had taught themselves to read and write. Snowball, one of the pigs, took it upon himself to ensure a fair and just system of government at the Animal Farm. On Sunday there were meetings, and all animals, no matter intelligence or breed, were equal. But, this did not last. Napoleon, another pig, had been a long-standing opponent of Snowball and his beliefs. But, he was not a huge talker, and struggled to find reasoning for his views. One Sunday, the topic of building a windmill came up. Snowball was all for it, while Napoleon was against it. He could not give reasoning for his views, so he only advised the animals to not vote for it, giving no sort of reasoning whatsoever. Suddenly, a huge pack of fierce dogs that Napoleon had been raising came into the barn and chased Snowball away.

   From then on, Animal Farm was a corrupt place. This is when, I think, that we can see many similarities between the government in Animal Farm and the COVID situation here in America. I think the most prominent similarity is that in the book, the animals who weren’t pigs were told that they didn’t have any say because they aren't intelligent enough. Here, we were told that the ‘experts’ knew better than us and that we had no right to say ‘no, I don’t want my kid in a mask for eight hours a day, five days a week,’ or, ‘no, I don’t want a vaccine that has taken under a year to be developed and that I probably do not need’. Also, in the book, the pigs kept on changing the commandments, and whenever they’d be questioned, they would say that it had always been that way and the other animals couldn’t remember because they were less intelligent. Sound familiar? The COVID rules on us kept changing too. It went from no mask, mask indoors, one mask everywhere, two masks everywhere, mask indoors again, no mask, one mask everywhere, and back to no masks. For vaccines, the ‘experts’ kept on telling us we needed booster shot after booster shot. And, let’s not forget the infamous quarantine guidelines that kept changing every week.

   Also, Napoleon is a sheltered, isolated leader. He hardly ever leaves the farmhouse to communicate with the animals he leads, and instead has Squealer do the talking for him. Sound familiar? Joe Biden hardly ever leaves the White House. He doesn’t communicate with the American people, and he truthfully never has. Joe Biden’s Squealer is the left-wing media. Instead of informing the American people himself, he has his cronies in the media do it for him.

   And, lastly, both governments used fear to control their citizens. In Animal Farm, it was fear of the farmer coming back, or Snowball spying on them. For us, it’s COVID. We were told that if we didn’t stay at home we would run the risk of killing our family members. I remember being eight years old and hearing on the news that I should stay away from my family so I wouldn’t make them sick. Parents were told that if they didn’t mask their kids up constantly that they would get a virus that could possibly kill them, (when in reality the death rate of this virus was the same as the seasonal flu). I shouldn’t have almost gotten kicked out of school because I refused to suffocate myself every day. But I did, and nothing the government or the ‘experts’ say can change that. Then, it was the vaccines. We were told to ignore possible side effects because we needed to ‘follow the science’. What science? There was no proof. We followed what the government said instead of our own common sense.

   Just like at the end of Animal Farm when Napoleon and his pig comrades put on T-shirts, begin walking on their hind legs and change the name of Animal Farm back to Manor Farm, America is all back to ‘normal’ like nothing ever happened. While once you couldn’t go anywhere without wearing a mask or showing proof of vaccination, those topics are now obsolete. But nothing the government or ‘experts’ do can erase what they did. So, in summary, I think that there are many similarities between Orwell’s Animal Farm and modern-day America.

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Josie is a nearly twelve year-old sixth grade student at Fort Fairfield Middle/High School.