When did we stop teaching history in our public schools? It seems like so many folks these days are simply ignorant of history and all the lessons it teaches. We seem more interested in what terrible thing Ellen did on her TV show to an intern or what new insult Ryan Reynolds has thrown at his wife.
Let’s go back in time to the days of gladiators and togas. No, I don’t mean your college frat house. I mean ancient Rome.
The Romans are an important subject for us to understand because so much of our government and culture is based upon them. Their government’s evolution from kingdom to republic to empire and dictatorship often feels all-too familiar.
Julius Caesar is best known as the guy who brought down the Republic and became the first emperor or dictator. Thanks to him, we have such great phrases as “et tu, Brute?” and “friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I have come to bury Caesar not to praise him.”
OK. That was really Shakespeare, but you get the point.
The supreme leaders in Rome were called consuls, and they had immunity from prosecution while they were in office. This made sense because a nation cannot have its leadership tied up in court litigation while trying to lead.
Old Julius Caesar had this issue. There were folks lined up ready to throw him in jail after his term of office was complete. You know how he solved this problem? He didn’t leave office. Yep. Just decided to be a dictator for life.
Fast forward to 2020. President Donald Trump is being hounded by frivolous litigation in his home state of New York. The liberal zealots pursuing this action deem their actions righteous. As president, Trump is shielded from legal action by a concept known as sovereign immunity.
However, this potentially goes away when he leaves office. Have any liberals stopped to consider the consequences of these actions? While I have no doubt that President Trump would not stay in office, these legal actions make it appear more likely he would do so.
Isn’t this a self-defeating prophecy? Liberals worry that Trump will not leave office after the election but then have created the climate for him to do so akin to Julius Caesar, thereby creating the dictator that they so greatly fear.
Nice job, Dems.
Remember when Trump said he would throw Hilary Clinton in jail for her crimes after the election? Never happened. That was simply election rhetoric and nothing more. Trump knew that taking the extreme action of charging an opposition leader with criminality was political dynamite.
But, that does not seem to deter the left, now does it?
Let’s consider another disturbing parallel to ancient Rome. The Gracchi brothers were a couple of citizens who tried to reform the government of Rome by making it fairer to common folks. They were populists who understood the common people and wanted to make their lot better.
The reforms they backed eventually got each of them killed amid rioting and public uproar.
Again, fast forward to 2016, when Trump is swept into office on a populist wave of reform, promising to “drain the swamp” and restore the voice of the people back in Washington. His numerous achievements have accomplished much of that.
But four years later, a leftist mob has arisen that threatens to destroy the very foundations of our nation. Instead of backing the reforms that were lifting our economy to new heights before the COVID epidemic, the mob allows itself to be manipulated and used by forces that threaten the republic.
Again, Dems and the left are actively encouraging the destruction of our precious United States.
Since the first day of the Trump presidency, from discredited charges of Russian collusion, threats of impeachment, salacious personal behavior rumors, and attacks against his family, the left has been trying to tear down Donald Trump.
If the objective of the left is to destroy the American republic, they are succeeding. Today, we have a generation of young people who do not understand the exceptionalism of the USA. They take the laudable goal of reforming police behavior and have twisted it into a general attack on America and her cultural institutions through rioting and destruction.
Rome stands as a warning to us. If we ignore the lessons of the past, we are doomed to repeat them.
Steve Lunetta is a resident of Santa Clarita and has recently changed his name to Augustus.
