Hail, Caesar! (Trailer Park Rome, One.)

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change. We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. They will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come. We've been asked to pause for a reality check; we've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can. ~Barack Obama

...

I dreamt tonight that I did feast with Caesar, And things unlucky charge my fantasy: I have no will to wander forth of doors, Yet something leads me forth.

Enter Citizens

~Cinna The Poet, Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene III.

I saw this last night. In a rambling speech at CPAC, Trump said "For those of you who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution."

What about all the people Trump has wronged and betrayed, though?

First Citizen: What is your name?
Second Citizen: Whither are you going?
Third Citizen: Where do you dwell?
Fourth Citizen: Are you a married man or a bachelor?
Second Citizen: Answer every man directly.
First Citizen: Aye, and briefly.
Fourth Citizen: Aye, and wisely.
Third Citizen: Aye, and truly, you were best.
CINNA THE POET: What is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I
dwell? Am I a married man or a bachelor? Then, to
answer every man directly and briefly, wisely and
truly: wisely I say, I am a bachelor.
Second Citizen
That's as much as to say, they are fools that marry: you'll bear me a bang for that, I fear. Proceed; directly. ~Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene III

I've been hearing for years how Trump is an autocrat, an authoritarian, a fascist, etc.

Personally, I think he's worse.

Don't get me wrong, the autocrats, authoritarians, fascists, wannabe Nazis, etc. are all there, in Trump's orbit, but that's just what passes for a standard "Conservative" these days. People like this asshole, Michael Knowles, who's literally calling for a "Final Solution" to eliminate transgender people.

Trump, though? Trump is more along the lines of a Mob-O-crat. That is, he fancies himself some kind of a Caesar, at the head of some base Mobocracy, a Trailer Park Rome if you will. 

He calls himself a "Warrior" for these fucking people. Yes, all 300+ pounds of fast food gristle, orange makeup and adult diapers, a "Warrior." Having been in a profession of arms, I don't think that word means what he thinks it means. 

But still, Trump, warrior chief of Bubba's Empire/Retirement Village and its ruling mobocracy. Golf, heart-attack burgers and strippers with more plastic in 'em than a Tupperware party.

You know, the kind of "Society" where, daily, somebody has to be thrown to the baying mob to be torn apart for basically no reason...or they will start ripping down society itself.

Cruelty's the point doesn't even begin to make the damn point.

The "Conservatives," lots of the well-off elites, and the ignorant rednecks that hold up both are simply bored, debased, perverse, demanding blood-sports and thinking they have nothing better to do than explore the seamier sides of their consciousness? 

Why the fuck else do you think these fucking people are obsessed with pedophilia, and the idea of young girls being forced to have babies?? Why else do you think we don't have a day go by anymore without some preacher or Republican politician getting popped for sex crimes?

CINNA THE POET: Directly, I am going to Caesar's funeral.
First Citizen: As a friend or an enemy?
CINNA THE POET: As a friend.
Second Citizen: That matter is answered directly.
Fourth Citizen: For your dwelling,--briefly.
CINNA THE POET: Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol.
Third Citizen: Your name, sir, truly.
CINNA THE POET: Truly, my name is Cinna.
First Citizen: Tear him to pieces; he's a conspirator!

~Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene III

I mean, it's not like we don't have a major war going on, like Russia trying to burn down Europe and the world in the name of reforging the Soviet Empire or anything like that, right?

These motherfuckers don't care. They don't want to fight...at least, they don't want to fight the Russians anyway. Hell, so long as they get their orgy of cruelty, sex and death out of it...they'd be fine with letting Putin conquer Europe and America and crown himself Tsar of the world!

As long as These Fucking People get to have a little power, feel rich and have someone of a lesser relative status to kick around, they don't give a shit about anything! 

I mean, seriously, I know people who've straight up told me they've never been more than two hours from where they were born and why would they even go to another state? The rest of the world outside of their little bubbles doesn't even really exist, to them. Unless they think it looks down on them or is out to get them.

Yet same people, more often than not, rabid Anime fans and all too often willing to stan for any Republican-proposed war that comes along. I can't make that shit make fucking sense.

And they're all conspiracy theorists and rage addicts. I cannot stress that enough.

What happens when they need more, when simple cruelty to Transgender people (Roughly, half a percentage point of the population) or to Ukrainians (Foreigners on the other side of the ocean who these fucking idiots have decided they resent) stops being enough?

What happens when they start needing a bigger dose of blood-sport or rage to stimulate the frills of their lizard-brains just so??

What happens when the current social fentanyl simply stops working??

CINNA THE POET: I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet!
Fourth Citizen: Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.
CINNA THE POET: I am not Cinna the conspirator!
Fourth Citizen: It is no matter, his name's Cinna; pluck but his name out of his heart, and turn him going.
Third Citizen: Tear him, tear him! Come, brands ho! fire-brands: to Brutus', to Cassius'; burn all: some to Decius'
house, and some to Casca's; some to Ligarius': away, go!

Exeunt

~Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene III.

And don't even get me started about the fact that these fucking people won't stop feeding the narcissist, either. You could pour the whole damn world down that hole where Donald Trump's soul is supposed to be and it still wouldn't ever be enough. But these nuts don't care. They don't care if he robs them blind, or even if he kills them.

Trump could stick the average MAGA through the heart with a Gladius in the middle of the sands of the Colosseum, and all the mob would do was roar their approval shove someone else forward to die.

Just so they get to have that little hit of blood-sport and cruelty first, or imagine themselves having their boot on somebody else's throat before they get killed, too.

They don't give a damn about anything else. It's not Rome they want to emulate, with its vast empire, wonderfully complex cultures, diversity, philosophies and religions nor its (albeit basic by today's standards) public works and social welfare, nor its armies and vast volumes of history that are still studied today.

No, they just wanna be the goddamn mob. 

And they're fine with being taken advantage of by damn near any shitty old white man so long as they claim to be a Republican, if that's what it takes. For their part, Republicans would rather take advantage than be leaders. They just assume all people are bad. 

I guess that makes it easier or something. I anthropomorphize modern Republican beliefs as the cult of Dis Pater...a chthonic deity of death and mineral wealth...for a goddamn reason. That's all these sons of bitches seem to really care about.

But here's the thing, is that really the world you want to live in?? 

What about those of us, as people, who aren't like that, and do not wish to be? Or those of us, around the world, who'd rather fight for our freedom than lose it to some bunch of lunatics sozzled on blood, populism and rage?

What happens when the Mob comes for you?

You either believe in civilization and freedom or you don't.

And sometimes, you have to fight for those things.

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If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan