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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35348 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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The American Empire will have its emperor soon enough, and we will have Alvin Bragg to thank, in some small part. The senatorial thugs who killed the Gracchi rejoiced at their victory over the Populares. Sulla dug up the bones of Marius and threw them into the Tiber, and the senate rejoiced because they had reset the constitution to ensure the proles would never threaten again. And Julius Caesar watched it all, and when his turn came, he did not submit to the orders of the Senate.

I'm all for analogies between America and late Republican Rome. But one difference that gives me pause is that American elites seem pretty damn united. In Republican Rome, the consulship and other elected positions were the height of prestige, and elites would stab each other in the back to win them. Many populares were not true believers. They were opportunists. For example, Crassus, who bankrolled Caesar in his early career and became a triumvir, hardly screams "champion of the people".

In our timeline, political office is not particularly prestigious. Very few of the uber-elite aspire to be president, with Trump being a rare example of one who did. So while Trump was willing to take up the banner of rust-belters and hillbillies and come at the king, who's the next clout-chaser with his resources who will? Elon?

All this Rome talk puts Mike Duncan on the brain. I basically agree with him that "a unified ruling class is a tough nut to crack."

I agree, but I don't think our ruling class is nearly as unified as you do. They maintain position through directing the hate-stream of popular scapegoating, but it's only a matter of time before some smart and ambitious person points it at them.

The reaction to Trump is instructive. The man is a clown, and they lost! They then marshalled all their forces, cut all the deals, ran four years of propaganda, enlisted the CIA, changed all the rules, metastasized a pandemic and started a program of race riots, impeached him twice and just barely squeaked out a win the second time. That is not the performance of a unified and capable ruling class. That's the performance of a fundamentally incompetent pack of morons with a loose and loosening grip on power. If the US ruling class does not want to be the last one, they had better set their house in order posthaste, because at the rate things are going, I'm going to rule a significant fraction of the US before I die.

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