Julius Caesar and Trump. I wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago on the pending civil war in the United States, and Donald Trump’s scripted path to dictatorship. This week I received an article from my brother in England, which announced a BBC, 3-part, TV drama entitled “Julius Caesar: The Making of a Dictator”.
In my blog, I compared the rise of Hitler and Mussolini to that of Donald Trump. In doing so, I had no idea how similar all three were to the rise of Julius Caesar’s dictatorship, a governing status that stayed in place in Rome for over five hundred years. It is a sobering precedent for what is happening now in the United States. “Of course that can’t happen in the United States”, I hear you cry. “You’re just paranoid. The people will wake up in time to stymie Trump’s plans”.
I know I have over-used the saying, but I am going to use it again: “Just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you”. Yes, it could happen in the US and, yes, the process is well underway. Are we all so certain we will “wake-up” before it’s too late to stop it? That is very dangerous, and naïve, optimism.
The BBC program, according to the article, directly compares the process Julius Caesar followed to become Emperor of Rome with the current path of Donald Trump towards a second term as US President. So, maybe, I am not the only one who is paranoid! I can only hope that the BBC series makes it across the Atlantic as soon as possible.
The article on the BBC series begins with the following statement:
“The Republic is in peril. Populist rage and turmoil sweep across the country, orchestrated by a ruthlessly ambitious politician whose rhetoric drives crowds into partisan frenzy. He claims that the system is corrupt and run by elites in the capital, although he’s a member of that elite himself. Eventually his supporters riot, attack the seat of government, and people die. He is exiled, but plots a return; even as he does, the great institutions of state fall into chaos and teeter on the brink of disaster.”
If that isn’t a precise, and graphic, description of the current state of US politics, I don’t know what is, AND IT IS A DESCRIPTION OF EVENTS THAT HAPPENED IN ROME 2000 YEARS AGO. It only serves to verify that old adage that “If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it”.
The article continues:
“Julius Caesar decided that the thing the Roman Republic really needed was more of him, even if that meant bending the rules of what was a democracy of sorts……… There followed years of scheming to win over Rome’s law-making assembly, the Senate. Still denied power, he turned to violence. Eventually, he was made dictator for life. Five years later he was stabbed to death by Brutus, and other senators. The civil war that resulted brought in 500 years of emperors. In other words, Caesar’s ambition destroyed the Roman Republic.”
Do we really think that it can’t happen to the United States, a fledgling democracy that is barely 250 years old, when it happened to Rome? We have to be joking, and stupid.
I hope the BBC series does make it across the Atlantic soon, and is made widely available. The US has quite often compared itself to Rome; US football and Nascar are modern variations of the Roman Coliseum. One can therefore hope that a comparison of the fate of Rome to what is happening in the US today, might have some traction, before we descend into dictatorship, slipping down the same path as Julius Caesar followed.
