The Fall of Rome [collapse of the American republic]

[NotHardUp1]

Maybe the severity of the collapse of the American republic will be less than that of Rome's, and no foreign barbarians at the gate will be the result, but there is enough dissatisfaction with the status quo that it increasingly seems not a matter of IF the republic will fall, but when.

There is more disconent with our Congress, with the presidency, and the judiciary, that totals up to more unrest brewing than in the 60's when the ancien regime truly began to crumble. And in a way, the events we've beheld in Congress, in the Supreme Court's rigging, and in the failure of the presidency that has resulted repeatedly in executive actions that are not Constitutional, we have evidence that the republic has already failed.

In a nation where the military cannot lead a coup, we will be left with some degree of martial law when it happens, but will be waiting for as yet unknown forces to step to the fore and establish the new paradigm.

The real question will be how long the populace will endure chaos before coalescing behind a new Caesar, or a Senate.

And, in a rare moment of leniency towards Trump, I don't think he is the cause so much as the instrument. After all, he got elected when enough voters got sick of the ultimatums preseented by the two-party monopoly on power. He has never been a leader, and has always ridden the wave, whether a punk on TV, an opportunist in the real estate mafia, or as a populist who took office out of ego after being shamed at the White House Press Dinner.

All the revolution is waiting for is a voice, and that voice isn't Trump. It will be some other, more like the Socialists of the '20's and '30's, even if not built on Socialism.

 

[TX-Beau]

Taha fall of Rome was circa the fourth century, this is the first century B.C.

Let's not get carried away with the hyperbole, we were an apartheid state 80 years ago and we're not back there yet.

 

[Latimer]

I initially thought NHU was referring to the end of the Roman Republic, which might be dated to 42 B.C. at the Battle of Philippi when the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony defeated those of Brutus and Cassius, but upon re-reading his post realized he was talking about the Empire not the Republic. In any case, the Shakespeare is worth a read:

My partner and I visited the city of Philippi at the beginning of June, and although it is impossible today to know the exact location of the battle, we stood on a rise amidst the ruins of the city and, looking out onto the plain upon which the battle was fought, pondered how the Mediterranean world--and therefore our world--might have been different had Brutus and Cassius prevailed. It is the setting for the last scene in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in which, after the battle and Brutus' death, Antony pays tribute to him:

This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only in a general honest thought
And common good to all made one of them.
His life was gentle and the elements
80 So mixed in him that nature might stand up
And say to all the world “This was a man.”

Battle of Philippi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Thracian city of Philippi was conquered by Philip II, father of Alexander the Great in the mid-4th century B.C., who then named it after himself. The impressive ruins are of the city that Octavian--later the Emperor Augustus--and later emperors built on the site. St. Paul preached there, the first city in Europe he visited.

Philippi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[KaraBulut]

It's not Rome. It's the Gilded Age they're after. Before the New Deal. Before unions. Before minimum wage laws. Back when the Rockefellers were worth $900 million while the average wage earner made about $800 per year.

We forget why socialism and communism were so popular before the 1950s.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The fall of Rome is classically pegged to be when the city of Rome itself fell, so not the inter-clan wars that surrounded the Caesars from their inception.

As for the Gilded Age, yes. There is a false nostalgia for the yore when the yore was all-but-slavery for the working masses.

Unions surged in the 1920's and industrialists were shaking in their boots at the prospects of egalitarian protections and the attendant anti-oligarch movements.

If the world falls appart in the coming election, the best thing Americans could do would be to listen to Bernie Sanders. He's no idealist. He's a canny voice for reform.


Just don't listent to him about Biden.

 

[TX-Beau]

The fall of Rome is classically pegged to be when the city of Rome itself fell, so not the inter-clan wars that surrounded the Caesars from their inception...

No, it's not. The fall of the republic is "classically pegged" to the rise of Augustus Caesar, Emperor number one. The city of Rome first "fell" to Alric the Goth in the fifth century B.C. some four hundred years before the republic ended.

Crisis of the Roman Republic - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The fall of the Roman Empire is "classically pegged" to the dissolution of Western Roman authority in Europe in the fifth century A.D.

Fall of the Western Roman Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The city of Rome "fell" at several points along that path, none of them are "classically pegged" republic/empire ending inflection points.

A quick search says the city was sacked four times in it's history, in 410 and 455 B.C. centuries before the end of the republic; and in 1413 and 1527 around a thousand years after the fall of the empire.

 

[TX-Beau]

I also found this

6 Infamous Sacks of Rome | HISTORY

Take a look back at six of the most damaging raids on the Eternal City.

www.history.com

Though two of those in the fifth century A.D. weren't actually the city falling and both happened after the partition and the end of the Roman Empire. Then there's a murky period when there are different people ruling the city until the Normans.

But, nope, none of them were the "end": of anything.

The U.S. is not Rome.

 

[NotHardUp1]

James Carville's comment about self-defeating far-left politics is dead on.

Until and unless the DNC stops its excesses, the center isn't likely to love them either, and even IF the midterms manage to see a Dem win, it won't stick as long as statements like the one he quotes can be pinned on Democrats.

 

[opinterph]

James Carville's comment about self-defeating far-left politics is dead on.

It is interesting that the quote being criticized is from a 2018 interview. It is also interesting that Mr. Carville's speech is so slurred that it requires subtitles.

The phrase "if fear was the driving force of policies to keep America safe, Americans safe inside of this country," which was removed from the edited video, is key because it makes clear her comment is rhetorical and not an assertion that white man as a general group should be the targets of fear and monitoring.

Did U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar Say 'Our Country Should Be More Fearful of White Men'? (Snopes; July 26, 2019)

In Context: Ilhan Omar’s “our country should be more fearful of white men” comment (PolitiFact; July 26, 2019)

 

[NotHardUp1]

Yes, but it was said, and the lookback at what mattered ultimately with the electorate is relevant. The go-to billy club of blaming everything on race certainly helped throw the elections to the GOP. Race problems are real, but they're not as portrayed by the far left.

Mr. Carville is not always right, and he sounded like a cranky old man long before he became a cranky old man.

However, his political acumen is still relevant, and his voice echoes what many believe about the sustainability of the Democrats if they do win next. Tepid stances for minimum wage or loan forgiveness only play with certain consituencies, and tons of those demographis never, ever vote.

Because MAGA is so inane, the "fight fire with fire" folks believe the DNC needs to go hard left to win. Going hard left is going to be a poison pill in the long term.

Trump is there because there is a general anger with Congress and the government for doing a really bad job for decades. Getting rid of Trump's policies at midterm and blocking Vance in 2028 isn't the fix, only a bandaid.

IF we don't break down before then, we are still headed for the same end unless and until the country finds common ground and something less existential than Save the Status Quo.

 

[NotHardUp1]

And now this: BBC article about Qatar graft to Trump as a "gift"

This is not even slightly legal.

Gifts given to the President become the property of the government. This is sheer bypassing of Congress to give Trump an imperial palace in the air.

Just disgusting.

Congress needs to act, dammit.

 

[cityboy-stl]

Article One Section 9: "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State."

If Biden or Obama had accepted a tea cup from Qatar, republicans would be tearing a hole in the space time continuum to impeach him over violating the Constitution. But when their Trumpenführer accepts an f-ing airplane, what do you bet they won't say a word. And neither will his maga minions. Hypocrites.

 

[KaraBulut]

Gifts from foreign nationals to the President become the property of the National Archives.

As the highest representative of the people and government, the President accepts gifts on behalf of the United States of America. The phenomenon, as old as the Presidency itself, grows with each administration: Today a President may receive 15,000 gifts a year. They come from every state in the nation and every country in the world. Gifts from foreign leaders continue a rich diplomatic tradition of exchange between heads of state; those from citizens, both Americans and others, symbolize an inherently democratic exercise - ordinary people freely addressing, in every manner and form, the President of the United States.

National Archives and Records Administration: www.archives.gov

Tokens and Treasures exhibit features gifts to U.S. presidents by American citizens and foreign heads of states.

www.archives.gov

Thanks to Aileen Cannon, Trump got away with taking government property the last time.

 

[Dargelos]

It won't break any rules about gifts because it is not a gift, it is a bribe. Since His Majesty is above the law, he can accept bribes.

 

[cityboy-stl]

Gifts from foreign nationals to the President become the property of the National Archives.

National Archives and Records Administration: www.archives.gov

Tokens and Treasures exhibit features gifts to U.S. presidents by American citizens and foreign heads of states.

www.archives.gov

Thanks to Aileen Cannon, Trump got away with taking government property the last time.

You know Trump is going to personally accept this airplane, and you know he is going to ignore the National Archives, and you know the republicans in Congress are going to do nothing about it being unconstitutional.

 

[cityboy-stl]

It won't break any rules about gifts because it is not a gift, it is a bribe. Since His Majesty is above the law, he can accept bribes.

I get your point. He's trying his hardest to be above the Constitution as well as the law.

Article 2, Section 4
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

 

[KaraBulut]

You know Trump is going to personally accept this airplane, and you know he is going to ignore the National Archives, and you know the republicans in Congress are going to do nothing about it being unconstitutional.

Assuming Trump is still alive in 2029, when the next Democratic President comes into office, do you think he's going to appoint another Merrick Garland to Attorney General? Something tells me Jack Smith might be interested in a second time at bat.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Gifts from foreign nationals to the President become the property of the National Archives.

This one has some kind of proviso that it goes to his library after his term. That smacks of bling, for imperial use only.

Because it is a functitonal aircraft, pressed into federal use, his successor should gut it, scap the imperial appointments, and keep it in service as a working craft, erasing the memory of a pseudo-tsar palace in the air.

 

[rareboy]

Interesting essay about the illusions and myths being shattered about the America that generations of US citizens thought America was.

We Are Not the Nation We Thought We Were

We must see through our myths about ourselves if we are ever to aspire again to greatness

davidrothkopf.substack.com

 

[Dargelos]

Excellent writing but the people who are most in need of learning from it are the ones least likely to ever see it.
The millions who can barely get beyond TV Guide will never read anything like this. The baddies have mastered the art of communicating at playschool level, we have not.
Dont go thinking that I am any fan of Adolf Hitler but one chapter of his book, Propaganda, explains how Nazis got their ideas across. We can learn from that, but dont forget to wash your hands after touching the damn thing.