The Party of Trump. The Demise of the Republic.
Lou Lyras
June 17, 2020
Trump is not a Republican. He’s the very antithesis of traditional republican values. Trump is the Julius Caesar of our times. He claims not to need a congress or senate … “I alone can fix it..” anything or anyone else is an enemy of the state and is not good for this country. He’s a self-obsessed man with no self-control. He placates to the rich and those senators whom bow to him and metaphorically kiss his ring, while attempting appeals to his Plebeians base. (Commoners), all to suit his own purpose with no regard the constitution. The generals that he so proudly claimed where “his generals” in the beginning of his term have all rejected him and thus have been replaced by a close group of sycophants and “yes” men. The Republican convention was the triumph march for Trump (Caesar) that was attended by those who feared him and those who blindly follow him. All in front of the People’s House, our White House, and with fireworks as a backdrop to top it off. The only thing missing was the Laurel Wreath over his head and the slave whispering in his ear of his own mortality. Is that what we want, no freedom, no Senate or Congress, no constitution? We have a Republic!
The hard work was over at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, on September 17, 1787. As the story goes, Mrs. Powell of Philadelphia, a political figure in her own right, asked Benjamin Franklin, “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?,” to which he replied , “A republic … if you can keep it.” Of course, those events are clouded in the past and we’ll never know the actual events. That’s not important now. What is important is that Trump is dangerously close to destroying it. Benjamin Franklin and the founding fathers worked hard to come up with our constitution. The United States, Thirteen Colonies, after the Revolution under the Articles of the Confederation was precariously close to collapsing. Money was owed, state debts was mounting, and there was no central government to hold us together. Yet, they came up with a document, a rule of law, a constitution that can grow with the Nation. And they wrote the rules to administer this constitution. So to Ben Franklin, who believed in Freedom of the Press (he was a newspaper man who would have been enraged to hear the words,”fake news”), who was near the end of his life (he died two years later on April 17, 1790), plagued with gout, this was the Republic that would outlast the Roman Republic.
Julius Caesar and Donald Trump Over 2,500 years ago the Roman Republic, of which our founding founders modeled our nation was founded. It began around 500 BC, and ended in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire. The Roman Republic was a democracy founded on the ideals of the democracy’s of Athens and Greece. The Roman Senate wanted no Kings or dictators and made it a point to assure this will never happen in Rome, they had checks and balances.
Now comes Julius Caesar (who shares an alarming similarity to Donald Trump). Julius Caesar, was a Roman general and statesman, and a Popularis, a Populist, a political faction who favored and played to the needs of the plebeians, the commoners, while he placated the senate. In fact, the people who Julius opposed where the Optimates, also known as the “good men,” who were a conservative political faction in the late Roman Republic,…This sounds like the Republican’s to me. After a series of civil wars where Romans fought against Romans, Julius marched in Rome a triumph, a parade, to honor himself, the Senate was appalled at this brazen self aggrandizement and grandiosity but fearing retribution they stayed silent. Similarly, Donald Trump, accepted the nomination on the White House South Lawn, with the White House, the people’s house, as a prop, and as He honored and praised himself and as the old guard Republicans, who were not present at his “triumph” stayed silent. In 46 BC, Caesar gave himself the title of “Prefect of the Morals” or as Trump said on Aug 21, 2019, “I am the chosen one.” Hmm… this is getting too scary. During Caesar rise to power he set out to pass an ambitious legislative agenda, like Trump, that included a debt-restructuring law, expanding the empire, redistributed land, land reforms, a police force (for law and order), grand infrastructure projects throughout the empire. He also reformed the tax system. These programs were, as you can see, very popular amongst the masses. By his cunning, his opponents profited too and stayed silent. Why stop a good thing? Sound familiar?
There were those who wanted to protect the Republic and took matters into their own hands assassinating Julius on March 15, 44 BC. But the story didn’t end there. His nephew, and adoptive son, Octavius, later known as Augustus, took over the position of the first emperor of the Roman Empire and thus the demise of the Roman Republic.From then on the democracies that began in Greece and Rome ended and humankind suffered over 1,800 years under the rule of Kings, Emperors, and Monarchies, until that fateful day in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787 when Ben Franklin declared to Mrs. Mrs. Powell, “A republic … if you can keep it.” Vote for The Constitution It took a Julius Caesar to destroy the democracy’s of Greece and Rome and the Roman Republic that lasted for over five hundred years. Within a few years he plunged the world for nearly two thousand years of Emperors, Kings, Tsars, Tyrants, and Despots with complete rule over their subjects. I do not want one Donald Trump to destroy our Constitution and our Republic that we have fought and died for.
Our Constitution, our Republic, and our Freedom means more to me than any political party. I will chose candidates that best represent the ideals and beliefs that are imbedded in our souls and memorialized in our constitution. Donald Trump and those who are unwittingly aiding him will not have my vote.
Fortunately, we have a chance to prevent the demise of our Nation. Go out and Vote.