this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
739 points (98.8% liked)
Political Memes
6299 readers
2638 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's important to remember that the fall of the Roman Republic was not the story of an evil dictator destroying a Free People(tm), but that of a sickened plutocratic oligarchy refusing to listen to its people for long enough that the people became directly hostile to the state, and when a political crisis came, it could not call upon the people to save it, considering - perhaps not entirely incorrectly - that to be ruled by an autocrat was not really any worse to them than being ruled by a sufficiently callous and ruthless oligarchy.
The comparison may still be apt.
Exactly. The only real difference is that modern Caesar (Trump) happens to be an idiot. But it's the same hostility to the status quo that gave him power.
And a loser, don't forget that.
Our only hope is that his ego and stupidity prevent him from succeeding. Unlike Caesar who saw the need to consolidate his power with the people, Trump just assumes he already has or doesn't need it, and instead is focusing on petty vindictive bullshit.
Caesar may even have genuinely believed in the popular opposition, to some degree - he was a lifelong populare when the norm was to waver between populism and conservatism as suited one's political career. Trump has no beliefs, because he has no thoughts.
Of course, notably, Caesar didn't kill the Republic. The man who came after Caesar killed the Republic (Augustus).
So when Trump 'goes', we still may need to be vigilant...
Does that make Musk, Mark Antony?