What the Roman senate's grovelling before emperors explains about GOP senators' support for Trump

[mahatmakanejeeves]

What the Roman senate’s grovelling before emperors explains about GOP senators’ support for Trump
By Guest Column -December 12, 2019

By Timothy Joseph

Unhinged leaders, dynastic intrigue, devastation and plunder: For 15 years I have been researching and teaching the ancient historian Tacitus’ works on the history of the Roman Empire. It has rarely been difficult to find echoes of the history he describes in current events.

I’m not the first person to make this observation.

In a letter dated Feb. 3, 1812, retired President John Adams wrote to fellow retiree Thomas Jefferson about Tacitus and his fellow historian, Thucydides.

“When I read them,” wrote Adams, “I Seem to be only reading the History of my own Times and my own Life.”

Over the past three years the world depicted by Tacitus has seemed much more immediate. The U.S. political situation during the Trump presidency has led me to better appreciate the closeness of Tacitus’ observations to our times.
....

[FirstLight]

1. Thank You for posting - ETA

...following the link to read the whole thing now...

ETA: Wow powerful and chilling. Makes me want to read more on this topic.

Without changing a chunk of the electorate (who don't understand this or don't care) and with the senate being weakened, I don't know how to fix this. These men have managed to hobble an entire Democracy in a few short years... (even though I do believe Bush paved the way)

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Hitler's brownshirts too, seem to remind me of the groveling of reluctant support by those...

outside Hitler's initial group of supporters, as time went on.

[Karadeniz]

3. Who's that basketball coach who said after the election, "We are Rome." San Antonio?

[hatrack]

4. Gregg Popovich - not even a basketball fan, and I love that guy . . .

EDIT

The fact that people can just gloss that over and start talking about the transition team, and we’re all gonna be Kumbaya now and try to make the country good without talking about about any of those things. Now we see that he’s already backing off on immigration and Obamacare and other things, so was it a big fake? Which makes you feel even more disgusting and cynical that somebody would use that to get the base that fired up to get elected.

“What gets lost in the process are African-Americans and hispanics and women and the gay population, not to mention the eighth grade developmental stage exhibited by him when he made fun of the handicapped person. I mean, come on. That’s what a seventh-grade, eighth-grade bully does, and he was elected president of the United States. We would’ve scolded our kids, we would’ve have discussions and talked until we were blue in the face trying to get them to understand these things, and he is in charge of our country. That’s disgusting.”

(Reporter tries to ask another question/add a comment.)

“I’m not done.

“One could go on and on. We didn’t make this stuff up. He’s angry at the media because they reported what he said and how he acted. It’s ironic to me. It just makes no sense. So that’s my real fear and that’s what gives me so much pause and makes me feel so badly that the country is willing to be that intolerant and not understand the empathy that’s necessary to understand other group situations.

“I’m a rich white guy, and I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it. I can’t imagine being a Muslim right now, or a woman, or an African-American, a hispanic, a handicapped person, how disenfranchised they might feel. And for anyone in those groups that voted for him, it’s just beyond my comprehension how they ignore all that.

“And so, my final conclusion is — my big fear is — we are Rome.”

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/11/san-antonio-gregg-popovich-trump-election-rant-we-are-rome

[crickets]

5. +1000

[Igel]

6. I think Joseph's maybe 50 years ahead

of our time.

[dalton99a]

7. Kick

While we may chalk up senatorial inaction – in the first or 21st century – to fear of an individual leader’s powers, there is another underlying factor that may align political figures from these two periods: The rise of an autocrat was personally good for them.

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie recently described this as the “simplest explanation” behind the motivations of many Republican lawmakers. He notes that their independence still emerges in, for example, opposition to the withdrawal from Syria.

But since Trump has pushed for policies long wanted by Republicans, such as lower taxes on the wealthy and minimal regulations, as well as a conservative judiciary, Bouie asks, “Why would any of them stand against a president who has delivered on each count?”

Tacitus made a comparable diagnosis. Of the first princeps Augustus’ emergence in the 30s and 20s B.C., he writes:

“Slowly he rose, dragging to himself the guardrails of the senate, magistrates, and laws – with no one opposing, since the fiercest had died in battle or through proscription, and the rest of the prominent men preferred the security of the present to the dangers of the past. The readier one was for servitude, the more he would be lifted up in wealth and in prestige…”