Why Trump Should Be Made Dictator for Life

There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; / Omitted, all the voyage of their life / Is bound in shallows and in miseries. / On such a full sea are we now afloat; / And we must take the current when it serves, / Or lose our ventures.

     —Shakespeare, from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

     There are four stages of a great civilization in the cycle of history: Strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make bad times, and bad times make strong men. When it gets to the stage of weak men making bad times, especially if a few hundred years have already passed since the civilization achieved greatness, and the society, if not the individual people themselves, has lost its vitality and vision, then it is generally the sign of immanent collapse and subsequent reset to strong men, often violent barbarian invaders, who set up a new civilization (or a new variation on the old one), and a new cycle, and some semblance of good times again.

     A few civilizations have survived several of these cycles. China is a fairly obvious example, its civilization surviving for literally thousands of years, though it was conquered and reconquered and re-reconquered by various barbarian tribes and various Chinese warlords alternately. One reason for China’s staying power as a society is that traditionally China had a very stable, almost static cultural and political system which could absorb new overlords and endure, converting millions of barbarian invaders to the Chinese way. But things are different in the west, more volatile and dynamic due to a more volatile and dynamic people.

     Possibly the best example of a western, mostly European civilization that survived more than one turn of the cycle, passing from strength to moral degeneracy and back to some semblance of strength again, is classical Rome.

     Part of the problem with the Roman Republic was that its political system was designed to manage a single city and its surrounding territory, which was gradually adjusted in a jerry-rigged manner to govern a huge and still growing expanse of land, with a huge and increasing population of non-Roman semi-assimilated masses. The ancient Patrician aristocracy remained relatively small in number, despite their astronomical wealth in the later stages of Republican history, so that their power was soon rivaled by the sheer mass of an ignorant and not particularly patriotic rabble, along with some more educated and well-off citizens of common rank, and even a few Patrician reformers. Consequently, especially in the environs of the Eternal City itself, appeasing these masses became more and more of a political necessity.

     The rabble living within the holy precincts of the Roman city walls, who did enjoy some political power, in accordance with ancient Republican tradition, were unpleasantly prone to further their power by rioting and murdering if they didn’t get their way; and their way included plenty of free handouts—the proverbial bread and circuses, plus sometimes flat-out bribes of money. Politicians wanting some lucrative or distinguishing public office would often near-bankrupt themselves by distributing what were essentially payoffs to the rabble, and paying for huge entertainments like chariot races and gladiatorial combats in the arena. Nevertheless, riots and violent protests, with blood flowing in the streets, were fairly common.

     The nation of the late Republic was polarized into two main factions or parties, the Optimes (“conservatives”) and the Populares (populists and “liberals”); some ambitious politicians, though Patrician aristocrats themselves, including Julius Caesar himself, took the side of the populists, with varying degrees of success, much as astronomically wealthy plutocrats today adopt the side of the “marginalized” masses, if only for the sake of virtue signaling and manipulating a huge voting bloc. This political and ideological polarization led to increased vehement civil strife and societal breakdown, resulting in frequent and bloody civil wars, violent coups, and insurrections. The last several decades of the Republic were a period plagued with one war and insurrection and political purge after another, and people in general were approaching wit’s end.

     Finally the people decided, it seems, that living under a relatively wise, successful, and peaceful dictatorship, with a unified nation, would be preferable to a blood-soaked and chaotic semblance of freedom…and thus the Empire was born, thereby resetting the civilization sufficiently that it survived for almost another 500 years in the west, going through the cycle of strength, prosperity, luxury, softness, weakness, decline, and fall all over again. Octavian “Augustus” Caesar, the first Emperor of the Empire, was a moral reformer among other things, and he tried to revive the old Roman virtues of civic duty, modesty, patriotism, and Stoic austerity, with some degree of success—though by the time of Nero the Romans were back to public orgies again, and Commodus, it seems, or maybe Severus, began the decline of a still more or less constitutional system into pure demoralizing despotism and military dictatorship.

     This sort of reset of the cycle may prove to be necessary, or inevitable, in the USA also, just as it was in Rome—necessary, that is, if America is to avoid simple collapse and ultimate disintegration. It may be that the ignorant and unpatriotic rabble demanding free handouts and occasionally running amuck, along with the increasing polarization and mutual hostility and hatred of our own Optimes and Populares, are destabilizing the society sufficiently that some radical change is truly required. This change is unlikely to be towards castrated globalism and socialism, however, as many lefties fervently hope; more likely, assuming that it is a more or less violent upheaval, in a well armed America at least, if not in more feminized western Europe, it is more likely to manifest as something more rightwards and maybe even fascistic, perhaps resembling to some extent the Principate, or early Empire, of Rome. Many fed up people may consider that to be preferable to the hysterical, degenerate freak show that postmodern leftism has become. It may be that most Americans, despite their/our human frailties, are just not willing to put up with a feminized, emasculated, and spineless neo-Marxist Brave New World mommy state.

     Which leads me to Mr. Trump. As I’ve mentioned before, he is in some ways similar to Gaius Julius Caesar, the clever, wealthy, successful, famous, and extremely ambitious fellow who pretty much ended the Republic by getting himself declared Dictator for life by the Roman Senate—though his life didn’t last very long after that, as quite a few Senators obviously had serious misgivings about that declaration. If Caesar had survived to complete his vision for the new State he might have set up a system that wouldn’t have degenerated into a despotism ruled by Tiberius as the second Emperor after the founder Augustus, and freaking Caligula as next after Tiberius. (The very fact that the Empire was ruled by Caligula as only its third Emperor is a clear indication that the system of government was not well designed at all, though the pre-existent bureaucratic system was efficient enough that the nation survived the occasional purple-robed psychopath, maniac, or utterly incompetent clown.) I suspect that American ingenuity could come up with a much better system than the Imperium, and arguably better than the hysterical mob rule of postmodern pure democracy also.

     Many people on the political and cultural right, or at this point even many in the center and the moderate left, might be moved to a state of alarm and dread by the very thought of the USA being overrun by neo-Marxists hell bent on persecuting all who disagree with their irrational, indoctrinated interpretations of reality and justice, who demand that white males especially become a new pariah class, who can’t tell the difference between boys and girls and want to punish anyone who can, who consider ANY inequality of outcome to be proof of systemic oppression……(etc. etc.). The still relatively non-degenerate, still relatively virile, still patriotic masses of Middle America might well prefer a competent leader with America’s best interests at heart (which is one reason why Trump is hated by the left so furiously and desperately) to the chances of the aforementioned freak show destroying pretty much everything America has stood for traditionally for almost two and a half centuries. (And for those who maintain that Mr. Trump is out for nothing more than his own self-glorification, I would reply that he has enough sense to know that the best way to glorify himself is to glorify his nation as its President.) Better a safe, strong, and relatively stable nationalist state than even the chance of degenerate and spiritually bankrupt globalized socialism taking the route of every other socialist state in history.

     It may be that Trump could be made Dictator for life, as was the case with Caesar, without totally wrecking the Constitution and constitutional values of the old Republic. In fact Caesar’s dictatorship was technically only a slight warping of the letter of the law, if not its spirit. (The office of Dictator was meant to be a temporary one for the purpose of leading the nation in times of dire emergency, when the deliberations of the Senate, or even of two equal Consuls, might reduce the speed and effectiveness of the executive power of the government.)

     But, in accordance with the nature of dictatorships, Donald II might have ideas very different from his successful father. Maybe we would be lucky and he’d be overthrown, in such an event, by Barron I (“the Pious”), with his wise mother the Dowager Melania guiding his decisions from behind the scenes. At any rate we probably won’t have Germanic tribes invading us, since the Germans are more emasculated and degenerate than the Americans at this point. The Chinese, maybe? Better we just reset the cycle of history ourselves, and long live Trump Imperator.

     (And no, I’m not entirely serious in this post. To some degree it’s just me playing devil’s avocado and trolling the indoctrinated eunuchs. Also, I should point out that thus far, it’s the left and the Democrats that have behaved in a tyrannical manner, and who hate the US Constitution and Americans’ constitutional rights, not Trump. But the cycle of history remains, and the west is in a state of severe decline into dysfunctional degeneracy, and if Trump is not to be made Dictator, then some other reset is still necessary. And almost certainly, whatever form it takes, it will be violent and very uncomfortable when it happens.)
   

Ha, I've already used this pic before, but it's so perfect