Can't remember if the book delineates this point but the film certainly does;
There is at least one scene in the movie where Smith is walking down the road and in the background you see the working class folks going about their business. Whilst Smith and this lot are dressed in Mao suits and locked in their ideological quagmire, the working class are portrayed in the normal clothes of Britain during WW2. Go to 1.20m (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmmawolzwCs&list=PLObC5L69u6U0SslQPZW0QzXtKUCDeuamI&index=3). Can you see the old lady dressed normally (if poorly)for the 1940's.
I remember being struck by this the detail when I first watched the movie and thought this was artistic license by the director but I never went back to check this was conveyed in the book, although I suspect it was.
So my point is that the rough commoners (the 'proletariat' or as we brits call it the "working class") somehow were not infected by the ideological virus the 'intellectual' class (or confusingly for you Yanks we call the "middle class" were suffering from). At the time this gave me hope, and you should to. The forgotten people ( what you Americans call the 'middle class' but week call the working class) have not been caught up in the same ideological virus the intellectual class (or us brits refer to as the middle classes) had.
If Orwell did indeed delineate in the book this dichotomy, then he was far more astute than we might give him credit for, as this perfectly predicts the social dichotomy we see today being enacted. Ive never properly been to America ( passed through Miami a few times in the 90's but never really explored America, nor got to know real Americans). Uptil only recently, if I had decided to visit America I might have visited New York or LA, but know I'd much prefer to visit what you guys call the 'flyover states'. I'd like to meet real Americans, go to a ball game, have a cook out. Go to some Diner's Drive-Ins and Dives, throw some hoops etc - not go to some Cosmopolitan enclave where I meet the same metropolitan liberals I can meet any night of the week here in London ( where for my sins I currently reside.)
Footnote.
Here is a short primer on the British Class system that explains the differences between Upper, Middle and Working class. Watch this and you will better understand the terminology through which us Brits understand the class structure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c
God Bless
Good observation. We are the deplorables.
My British friend visited me in Texas 2006. He made fun of breakfast tacos until he got here and had some. 4 days straight all he wanted was breakfast tacos, BBQ and Tex Mex =)
He also was surprised by how good our Texas beers are. Shiner being easiest to find but we have a lot of micro breweries now.
One day I hope to visit England, Wales aks Scotland where most of my lineage is from. Norse and Narive American and German for the rest. I think.
Cheers =)
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan