Donald Trump is not the Virus
The following article is included in my new book, Donald Trump: Deadbeat Tyrant, published 13th January, 2021.
A French philosopher once noted of the Roman Empire’s fall:
If the chance of one battle — that is, a particular cause — has brought a state to ruin, some general cause made it necessary for that state to perish from a single battle. In a word, the main trend draws with it all particular accidents
Montesquieu was right. Rome did not fall due to the military defeats inflicted upon it by barbarians at the gate, it fell due to a combination of economic difficulties, territorial over-expansion, military overspending, government corruption and general political instability, among a range of other factors. The military defeats were the “particular accidents” that ultimately stemmed from “the main trend” of imperial decline.
Whatever the cause, Rome fell, as all great empires do.
But democracy can fall too: Italy in the 1920s; Germany in the 1930s; Chile in the 1970s; Brazil, Hungary and several other in the 2010s.
As we approach the long and drawn out counting of the votes, a spectacle that will draw a global audience of tens of millions, some now question whether the US is on the verge of joining the growing list of fallen democracies. Even before the count has…
