Friday, April 26, 2024 at 3:43 PM
Julius Caesar was the greatest general of Rome and also a formidable politician! He had the skills necessary to cajole and bend people to his will, which in the end caused his assassination and the eventual loss of the republic! He was the penultimate dictator, believing that he was above the will of a Senate that had ruled Rome for hundreds of years, through, and with, the consent of the people. It all came to an end when tyrannicide was unleashed on him by a Senate that became disgusted with his ambitions, led by Cassius and Brutus, Brutus whom he looked upon and treated like a son. At the time, he was having an affair with Brutus’s mother. A group of about 20 senators, out of the 900, conspired to kill him in the Senate. They distracted Mark Anthony, his henchman, long enough to stab him to death. Things did not go so well for the conspirators, but you can check it all out!
This story comes to mind as America is set to elect a new leader in the next 7 months. Gerontocracy is the norm in American politics these days with Biden and Trump, both old men, vying for the highest office in the land for the last 8 years, at least. In a time of discord and discontent and conspiracies and misinformation, the choice has never been more important. Whether we will choose a convicted carnival barker, a man who will sell Bibles to pay for his endless court cases, a man with no moral compass whatsoever, or will we choose an 80- something career politician, who has shown competence and compassion and steadfastness in his first term. Not perfect by any measure, but when you compare Biden and Trump, in my opinion, the scales are tipped in Biden’s favor by a very long shot!
Please don’t for one minute think that I’m comparing Trump to Julius Caesar! That would be so very insulting to Julius and to the Roman people and to history. The only comparison is that I believe that Trump wants to end the Republic and establish an authoritarian government! His arrogance in believing that he is above the law, that as president he’s immune from prosecution, says all we need to know about this narcissistic accident, who spreads lies and hate and chaos every single time he opens his little mouth. That surprised me also: for someone who is always spewing garbage, you’d think he had a bigger mouth, literally!
I keep telling my friends to stop listening to the clamor, the noise, surrounding this election! The mass hysteria this naked emperor is creating will abate once he’s defeated for good in November. He will become a Junior Soprano-like figure, with an ankle bracelet, stuck in his gilded cage in Mar-a-Lago, muttering incomprehensible garbage to no audience except for his minders, suffering a fate worse than death, one of irrelevance!
Res Publica Amissa. A Republic lost? I don’t think so!
Glen