Donald Trump: Like the Roman

I heard Tom Holland, the ancient historian who went to my college, talking interestingly on the BBC about the things Donald Trump has in common with Caligula and Nero. 

It caught my attention because I made a similar point in this blog recently, though I compared Mr Trump with the later Roman emperors of the years of decline, when defending the borders was a problem. I said,

I increasingly feel that we may be living in a period like the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the golden age where Gibbon starts his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Come to think of it, there is something of an outlandish late Roman emperor about Donald Trump, perhaps a rich wheat importer who got his position in an auction held by the Praetorian guard. 

One can imagine Melania in Ancient Rome too, reclining on a lectus, something that resembled a chaise longue.



Trump is certainly in the bread and circuses tradition. He also resembles, as Tom Holland says, the Populares. They were the demagogues of the late Roman Republic who sought to wrest power from the Optimates, the oligarchs of the time.


Trump said, to much left-wing derision, that he loved the poorly educated, after polls showed they supported him. No doubt he does. He has good reason to. 


In the words of Chesterton

We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,

Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.

Trump deliberately spoke as the poorly educated speak in the street and it worked for him.


He broke every rule, followed his own instincts, not those of his advisers, and won. He is certainly a remarkable man. His success in pulling of an incredible victory by breaking all the rules and defying the odds makes me think he might be a great success as Presient. 

The experts in the press who warn he will be a disaster repeatedly said he had no chance of winning, at every stage. Those people can be ignored.


After the groping allegations I gave up on Donald Trump, but watching his victory I become enthusiastic about him, because something badly needed to happen to break the grip of political correctness (a cliche but a very useful one).


A counterview is that of the very conservative commentator Peter Hitchens, brother of Christopher, who opposes mass immigration, pornography and the influence of left-wing teachers and lecturers, loathes Hillary Clinton and Neo-Con wars, but who is very alarmed by Donald Trump. 

Peter Hitchens is reminded of

Those old stories about wicked necromancers raising demons, and then not being able to send them back where they came from, seem to me to be metaphors for modern-day political alchemists who raise huge hopes which they know they cannot satisfy, so summoning into being crowds which can all too easily become mobs, and will not go home when asked. What then?

I am much more optimistic. 

Obviously, I agree with him that Donald Trump is a yahoo and a braggart. He is a reaction to identity politics, multiculturalism and disastrous misrule by the right of centrists and left of centrists, of people like Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Tony Blair, George W. Bush and the international oligarchy. 

Donald Trump is alarming and he seems a demagogue. However, though I recognise the dangers, I am hopeful. I think, at worst, his victory means creative destruction. And, judging by his first appointments, it may well be a great success, for his country and for Europe. 

It is a mistake to suppose Donald Trump is a right-wing Republican. He is, in some respects, more of an old fashioned right-wing Democrat. Maybe he'll create a new New Deal. The old one was copy pasted from Hoover.