Coming Age of Caesarism
So as a follow up to how some are looking ahead to America being Phoenixed I think Hartmanns post is worth calling out
Rightwing blogger and JD Vance mentor Curtis Yarvin, who began arguingover a decade ago — with his “dark enlightenment” movement — that America needed a new Caesar to free us from gridlock and stagnation.
As JD Vance noted in a 2021 podcast:
“There’s this guy Curtis Yarvin who’s written about some of these things. One has to basically accept that the whole thing is going to fall in on itself. … The task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved and then when the inevitable collapse comes you build back the country in a way that’s actually better.”
Of course what JD does not tell you is that there are those who are working to make the collapse a reality. Controlled Demolition
Trumps backer and JD Vance mentor also made mention of Caesarism in his 2004 essay “ The Straussian Moment”. In it he provided an untranslated German quote (Very Straussian of him) which when translated yields:
But for us, who have placed a destiny in this culture and this moment of its becoming, in which money celebrates its last victories and its heritage, Caesarism, approaches quietly and irresistibly, the direction of will and must is thus given in a narrowly unwritten circle, without which it is not worth living. We don't have the freedom to achieve this or that, but we have the freedom to do what is necessary or nothing. And a task which the necessity of history has posed is burdened, with the individual or against him.
From Wikipedia
Caesarism identifies and describes an authoritarian, populist, and autocraticideology
Hartmann goes on to describe the end of Roman Democracy
The end of the democratic phase of the Roman republic was brought about by wealthy, elite Romans like Marcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 BCE) — the richest man in the nation at the time — who frankly hated the Roman “free bread for all” welfare system.
He and others like Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great, 106–48 BCE) wanted to end the voice of the public in political decisions (because they were demanding free bread, paid for with rich peoples’ taxes), so they used their massive wealth to promote rightwing authoritarian populism and buy off legislators who’d then be loyal to them.
This created political gridlock in the Senate, leading many Romans to lose faith in their democratic form of government.
Three primary elements were used by the morbidly rich of that era to erode the power of Rome and replace it with sycophants loyal to them: polarizationand elite gridlock, the erosion of democratic norms, and the concentration of power in the hands of a small elite who funded and thus controlled Rome’s senators.
It took decades, but they finally succeeded in using that lack of faith in government to replace Roman democracy with Caesarism, aka authoritarian strongman rule, kicked off by Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon River to seize the seat of government in Rome and finalized by Augustus Caesar ending any semblance of democracy.
My sense is that many Americans after decades of brainwashing and disasters do not oppose Authoritarian Rule so long as the Caesar is someone they support. However, all rulers have a successor and even if “your Caesar” is what you believe him to be you wont have much of a say over who comes next.
Indeed Julius Caesar was followed by Augustus Caesar after his assassination. Augustus made himself the first emperor of Rome in 27 B.C.E.
Of course the Democratic Roman Republic was in an almost constant state of war, whereas the dictatorial Roman Empire's first 200 years were relatively peacefuland prosperous.
Jesus Christ probably didn’t think much of the Roman Empire given his fate. Pontius Pilate serving under Emperor Tiberius presided over the trial of Jesus and ultimately ordered his crucifixion.
Curiously Peter Thiels Palantir named its software for distribution COVID vaccines as Tiberius
[Tiberius was used to help ] the federal government allocate the amount of vaccine each state will receive” and also to “decide where every allocated dose will go – from local doctors’ offices to large medical centers.” Tiberius, and by extension Palantir, collected all the Covid-19 and healthcare data from US government agencies, local and state governments, pharmaceutical firms, vaccine manufacturers and companies contracted to act as vaccine distributers.
Palantir was also provided Americans’ sensitive health information by the Trump-era HHS as well as “a wide range of demographic, employment and public health data sets” in order to “help identify high-priority populations” to receive the vaccine first.
End
Good catch! For some reason, your articles don't appear in my mail box anymore so I'll make sure to come here and check.