All Hail Ceasars: Republican democracies die easily
Michael Charney on March 19, 2025 For those who closely watch the increasingly irrelevant U.S. Congress, you will be aware that Republicans currently propose adding Trump’s face to Mount Rushmore and making his birthday a national holiday, in honor of what they call the Golden Age he is claimed to be introducing. Golden Ages are what all revolutionary leaders claim to be introducing. Virgil claimed this of the rise of Emperor Augustus. Others said this of Nero. Napoleon was believed to be doing this for France. For Mussolini, it was a revived Roman Empire for Italy. For Hitler, it was the Thousand-Year Reich. The problem with these great men who promise Golden Ages is that, in most cases, they do not deliver. To build a legacy of glory, they need to ruin what came before. Hitler burned the Reichstag and would later comment favorably on the Allied bombing of Berlin, saying they were doing his work for him in preparing for the construction of a glorious new capital, Ge...