Ancient Rome? Really?

Imagine having to translate such nonsense.

It doesn’t matter if what he says makes sense or is true; if he says it confidently and double downs on it, people will be convinced (or be coerced to agree)

My take is that he sees himself as Julius Caesar reincarnate, who spelled the end of the Republic, and wants to be the first emperor of the USA. If you read about the last days of the Republic there are so many historically rhyming events that with the current state of America, a repeat of history seems almost inevitable. A spate of military wins means Rome becomes very rich very quickly, disband rival military power which leads to pirates and banditry, widespread extremes of wealth and poverty, politicians riling the public up into a frenzy with populist talking points, using corrupt judiciary system to punish their political opponents, plebs forcing themselves in on senate discussions, Krassus was a mega oligarch banker who bankrolled politicians and held debts as favours to call on, the Bona Dea scandal, Clodius being unceremoniously taken to court for sneaking into a women-only festival, who is betrayed by another political rival Sicero only to then be equitted (jury was bribed), and the subsequent crossing of the Rubicon by Caesar, leading to insurrection, more political assassinations, and the fall of the Republic.

I would say he is as spiteful and vengeful as Clodius (and feels wronged in the same way he did by the court cases against him), is as ambitious as Caesar, has Musk as his Krassus-figure backing him, craves attention and celebration of himself like Pompey, and thinks he is as important and catalytic to political change as the Gracchus brothers were.

Trump aspires to be as awful and as "great" as the conniving ruling class of ancient Rome, because he us just as morally bankrupt as many of them.

However all of these observations seem at odds with the way he presents himself - seemingly senile, lexicon of a five-year-old, and lacks any of the charisma and knack for timing that the great orators of the Senate had. In comparison, Trump as an isolated figure is but a skidmark compared to the intellectual brilliance of the Roman elite.

Alright, you might wanna sit down for this. Hate to be the one breaking it to you, buuut the Internet is not always a rational place...

So we can mentally prepare ourselves for Trump 2, the idiotening.

Thank you, I was getting severe deja vu about that woman in the image

Because somewhere, someone's Trump rage boner was starting to wilt just a bit.

We're all the descendants of when Hercules impregnated every female trojan as part of his 13th labour. You can read all about it in my book "The Da Vinci Code: Die Harder"

To play the ultimate Devil's Advocate, the Romans did leave a lasting cultural impact on Brittain. So in a way we have a cultural bloodline that is distantly connected to Rome.

I'd say it's conservative dementia but I'm not a doctor.

No, don't rationalize the crazy.

There's not a lot this man doesn't say.

Yeah that’s not actually incorrect too badly. Well perhaps the “bound together” bit but like history for the massive systems, yeah, it is somewhat shared. Common law and whatnot. Although Italy definitely doesn’tuse common law anymore so Trump would be better of comparing US to brits in that sense.

I doubt Italy ever used common law as that originated in Medieval England. It's civil law that descents from Roman law (specifically Justinian's codification of it). Since civil law is way more common around the world most countries have more in common with Rome than the US (or other Anglo countries) do.

You are right however that trying to portray the US as a modern 'Rome' is not a Trump thing but common American propaganda.

To keep this in context, this was a softball discussion with Trump from 2019 where he made some stupid throwaway comment about some supposed commonalities between the USA and Italy. If this annoys you THIS BADLY I don't know what to say. Pick like any of the 50 things Trump did this week and they are more relevant than this trashy article.

A wise man once told me "you must choose your battles" and for me, this is one of those times. This is such low stakes stuff compared to all the other crap he is doing. Don't let some lazy journalist distract you with this crap today. Look at some ACTUAL nasty things going on, like Trump talking about reducing Social Security. Save your rage for when it matters. If you let every lazy article that misquotes Trump rustle your jimmies like this, it's going to be wildly unproductive.

Assuming someone's gender while virtue signaling?

Did u just ableistize

You can’t say “lame”, six or seven people associate it with disabilities so it’s offensive

(JK, “retarded” is dumb to say though cuz it’s like 60 or 70 percent of people who associate it with disabilities)

Yeah that’s my tangent, my 2024 guide for being a normal human:

• retard bad
• lame reclaimed (or unlikely to remind 98% of people of handicaps)

Open to other opinions!

2024 and this guy is using “lame” as a slur and being downvoted by ponies. As expected.

How do you know that he doesn't mean it in the medical sense? Would fit, too

you read my mind, was just editing my previous comment when you sent this

the Roman legislation principles is the foundation for all modern counties with a court, parliament and executive power

The Roman consul and senate are nominatively similar to modern parliaments. But their functions were radically different. You don't have MPs and Senators obtaining their positions by leading armies of conquest abroad and bringing back slave captives to be tributed to the imperial core. You don't have civil wars to decide the next President or a pagan faith that places the nation's political leadership in the pantheon of occupied territories at sword point. You don't have a single city's local residents comprising the near-totality of the national body politic.

The American fumbling fathers event went so far as to copy many parts of it.

The iconography. Not the function. The actual political system was based on local colonial government organizations built on the back of the founding compacts of the first settlers. Local assemblies and mayoralities and governorships were features of European colonial rule, not Roman republicanism. State assembles and a national legislature/executives were features of Dutch protestant joint-stock company boards/executives not Roman dictatorships. Courts were based on the English Common-Law system not Roman Codes.

FFS, early American politicians knew jack shit about Roman civilization. They were working off of pseudohistory largely invented during the era of Charlemagne and passed telephone-style through editorialized written and oral histories for the next 1400 years. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison looked at the French Catholic aesthetic, which sought to invoke Roman art and architecture, and cribbed it to appeal to his snobby know-nothing American Protestant peers. Also, a ton of Freemason wink-wink shit. That's why they were putting pyramids and fasces on all their early works.

And much of the architecture was inspired or copied from Palladio. So toy get that neoclassical look that is the hallmark of DC

That's absolutely true. Although the real neoclassical look of DC wasn't really the focus of the city until the 19th century, because that shit was expensive to build and you needed Lincoln's greenbacks and the industrial revolution machinery to complete big iconic construction projects.

But it was all aesthetics, no substance. A bunch of ionic column toppers does not a Roman political system make.

Why would anyone think he came up with that? He was quite obviously just reading a speech someone else wrote.

He did not. He read of a prewritten speech tying the US to the cultural history of Italy. Pretty tame stuff