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Tyranny Expert Sums Up A Trump Win With 2 Ominous Words: "America Ends"
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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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I get what you are saying and agree, but it is kind of noteworthy that basically every dictator before Caesar did that. Famously there was some retired consul or something in the early republic who was granted the dictatorship, saved Rome from seemingly assured destruction in combat, and then immediately retired back to his farm. Always forget the name... But even people like Sulla, who used his dictatorship to wage a civil war and is to my knowledge the first Roman general to march troops into Rome, eventually resigned their dictatorship. It was originally never intended to be a permanent position, which is why Caesar claiming it for life was such a turn of an era.
I guess what I'm saying overall is Trump might, even if elected to a second term, still turn out to be the American Sulla instead of the American Caesar if you catch my drift.
Disclaimer: Non-American here. Dictatorship bad. All of this is bad.
Cincinnatus. That was the hero one-battle dictator who went back to his farm after.
I don’t know the history well enough to know how common it was or how real the story is to the way things played out. But I always sort of suspected that the Cincinnatus story was played up so much that we still know it thousands of years later, because of later Roman dictators who really wanted to plant it in the public imagination that benevolent dictators were real, and a totally excellent idea
Yes, thank you!
Yeah I guess it is quite possible, likely even, that his story was embellished in history, and it was certainly abused later as you say. But to my layperson's knowledge at least, every instance of historically recorded dictatorship before Caesar was relinquished willingly. I also think it quite possible that for a long time there was enough social pressure around such an office to keep it temporary, especially if it was indeed mainly directed against external threats like invasions.
My interpretation is that Sulla set a bad precedent for abuse of the office in domestic politics, Caesar used that precedent to try and kill the (senatorial) republic, and Augustus dealt the finishing blow.
But all of this is an etymological tangent in answer to a rhetorical question anyway. With the drift in meaning Trump basically said he wants to be king, and he might still get his second opportunity to be become Caesar.
you should shut the fuck up with your 'well actually' de facto dictator apologia
Rome didn't have that many 'dictators' give up power
the vast majority of societies with authoritarian dictators are dysfunctional
again: shut the fuck up.
Who hurt you
Who
hurt
you
son
there is a fascist movement
this is an emergency
I will hurt who I will hurt.
"Hey this historical fact is both relevant and interesting"
"STOP APOLOGIZING FOR THE BAD MEN"
It is idiocy and I am not obliged to respect it as anything but idiocy.
You sound so mad, and all this projection about being an idiot isn't the healthy outlet for that self-doubt you may think it is.
Go outside sometime, feel the sun, touch the grass.
It's nice out there, buddy 😎
These are not problems I have. I do have the problem of pseudofascist apologia being literally everywhere. You emitted trash nonsense. We already know what Trump is. Shut the fuck up.
Wow, ok. User name does not check out.
Jokes aside though I feel attacked and my defence mechanism is to braindump, so consider what is to follow to be on you.
As I was trying to make clear with the implicit disclaimer at the beginning of my comment and the explicit disclaimer at the end of my comment, that was not my intention. What I was trying to do was expand on the historical context as @Soulg@sh.itjust.works already pointed out (thanks btw). I am well aware that the term dictator has lost its connotation of "temporary office" long ago, and it is today used pretty much in the sense of absolute monarchy.
The GP asked "how many do you know", and essentially I replied "at least two but pretty sure it's more" to that.
But ok, you posit I test. Here is my counterargument. With knowing Wikipedias love for lists and a search you land here: List of Roman dictators.
List starts 501 BCE, ends 44 BCE, with Julius Caesar by the way. I would eyeball its length at ~80-100 entries. That would amount to a dictatorship once every five years roughly.
The article helpfully explains a few Latin terms it uses, among them "abdicavit – abdicated, or resigned". Ctrl+F says 7 occurrences, minus the one explaining it that are 6 mentions of the term, so my new guesstimate would be there are at least 6 dictators (in ancient Rome) who relinquished their office willingly. And I would bet you could get that number higher if you dig into the details, and start looking at term limits and stuff.
So all I'm saying is essentially the dictatorship was an office that was regularly employed for nearly 500 years by an ancient state, and was then abused to bring about the destruction of its system of government. Remind you of anything? Like the presidency? Trump?
Like those that exist right now? Not only the vast majority, all of them are dysfunctional and I never doubted that. Seriously you are preaching to the choir here. I was literally at court today because a number on a piece of paper was too low, and I couldn't pay to get a newer piece of paper. Luckily the case was dismissed, so I'm pretty fond of the rule of law and separation of powers at the moment, but also equally aware of the monopoly on violence the state claims for itself and how fragile that makes it.
I sense that you are angry, and most likely afraid, and I empathise with that. And due to that level of distress I would assume you are from the US. I'm not sure what to tell you except trying to resist the slide into dictatorship the best you can. Caesar was assassinated, and Hitler only narrowly escaped assassination several times is all I'm saying.
Yeah, no, you little dictator. :P
This is stupid. You are an idiot. Shut the fuck up.
I'm not quite sure what exactly you are taking offence from in that statement but feel free to enlighten me. In my defence I tried to indicate that it is a rough metaphor.
P.S. to rephrase, it seems you did not in fact catch my drift.
If Trump is elected to a second term it will be a disaster and there is no ambiguity as to the nature of Trump for he has already declared civil war against the will of the American people. You are an idiot.
And please show me where the fuck I ever doubted that. Do you not know who Sulla was? Did you not read me saying he fought a civil war and was the first general to march on Rome? Like right above the section you quoted out of context?
What I said is Trump might not turn out to be the one to kill the republic but the one to irreparably damage it instead. Think for example him getting elected to a second term and then dying a month into it without achieving much of his dictatorial agenda.
That I am, given that I am still arguing with you.
You're an idiot because you think that Trump would ever resign like Sulla did.
Again, not what I said. To be frank, the amount of misinterpretation you show is starting to seem utterly deliberate.
Sometimes there is a reason for that and often better not to spend the time
In my experience, it doesn’t take more than like 1-2 clearly aboveboard and good faith messages for even someone who’s pretty disagreeable to get on the same communication page. If it’s like 10 messages of just discoherent hostility then the usefulness of the conversation may be at its end
Yeah I'm probably giving more benefit of the doubt than I should here, but I prefer to err on the side of caution in matters like this. I'm still not entirely convinced that this user is a troll, because if I were facing the prospect of an openly fascist dictatorship I would be in emotional distress as well. So I'm still doubting, however I have to say my patience is beginning to wear rather thin.
idk man you said we didn't know if Trump was going to be like Sulla and give up his power and that's a stupid fucking thing to say.
I said Sulla gave up his dictatorship in response to a rhetorical question I took the liberty of answering.
In an effort of tying that aside back to the topic of the thread I then tried to state that it remains to be seen if Trump will be the one to kill the republic (Caesar), or the one setting the precedent to make it possible (Sulla).
I have no delusions that Trump would willingly give up power. He has already shown that he will not. But what he hasn't done (yet) is kill the republic. And as the assassination attempt happening a few days after my post should have made clear, he might yet fail to. What I'm worried about is whoever is going to fill the power vacuum that comes after his departure. This shit won't stop even if death rids us of him.
But fair enough, I can see how that might have been misinterpreted. Hence my disclaimers in said post, and my efforts at explaining following your accusations. Which you have so far only answered with more insults. So I really have to wonder who is the one saying stupid fucking things here.
Yeah speak more carefully.
Learn to read.
learn to write.