Trump is governing at Peak Roman Republic
Trump's unfettered America, and don't say I didn't tell you so
There’s something rather charming. in a frightening way, about small South American countries believing threats made by a super power. When U.S. A ir Force flights filled with deported Colombian nationals were refused entry by Colombia, President Donald Trump didn’t waste time with diplomacy. He took the Roman road straight to a solution: do it or we will destroy you. It didn’t take long for Trump’s Golden Age America to achieve peak Roman Republic.
Trump posted on his Truth Social account:
I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of Illegal Criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia. This order was given by Colombia’s Socialist President Gustavo Petro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people. Petro’s denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States, so I have directed my Administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures:
-Emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States. In one week, the 25% tariffs will be raised to 50%.-A Travel Ban and immediate Visa Revocations on the Colombian Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters.
-Visa Sanctions on all Party Members, Family Members, and Supporters of the Colombian Government.
-Enhanced Customs and Border Protection Inspections of all Colombian Nationals and Cargo on national security grounds.
-IEEPA Treasury, Banking and Financial Sanctions to be fully imposed.
These measures are just the beginning. We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!
President Gustavo Petro believed Trump’s threats, and within hours, Columbia pledged to allow “unlimited” American flights bearing deported individuals into the country.
It’s very simple to do such things when the world sees what’s happening in Washington, D.C. Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, got the biggest promotion in military history since Robert McNamara went from U.S. Army captain to Secretary of Defense, with a stint running Ford Motor Company sandwiched between. Hegseth was a major in the Army, before becoming a Fox News host, prior to his elevation to head the entire military of the biggest superpower on earth. At least Hegseth has the physical stamina to show up for the job, which gives him a slight edge over the departing SecDef.
Trump also got his choices confirmed for the CIA, John Ratcliffe, and for DHS, Kristi Noem. I fully expect Pam Bondi will be confirmed as Attorney General, despite some having their doubts. In the American Roman Republic, the Consul gets what the Consul desires. Trump is governing like a Roman Consul, and given time, he might try to make the leap to Caesar.
For now, the power high is working. In Davos, Europeans are envious of the U.S. ability to flex our nationalist economic muscle. In the Middle East, things that were previously forbidden to speak of are now openly spoken. Trump asked Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza. Of course, for 80 years, this has always been the solution, since the “refugees” in Gaza (I’m not talking about long-time families who lived in Gaza for generations) were kept there by Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states after the “Nakba” when Israel defeated those armies in its bloody war of independence.
These Palestinians were Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, who were refused repatriation by the governments who sent them to live in what became Israel, to balance Jewish immigration post WWII. They’ve been “refugees” for generations, living in “camps” which are really cities in Gaza. There’s a host of reasons why Jordan and Egypt would never accept them—one is that taking them in would likely violate the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. In Jordan, they’d likely overthrow King Abdullah II.
It’s not a great idea, for those and other reasons. But no administration until Trump’s ever really recognized the idea behind proposing it. The Middle East is as unstable as it’s been since President Obama’s “Arab Spring,” but this time, the end result is unknown. Turkey, Russia, Iran, and the U.S. are playing for power. Trump is using our newfound Roman Republic power to try and shape the future of the Middle East, for our profit.
Watching the U.S. flex against China, like Rome against Carthage, will make these days interesting. But unlike Rome, the U.S. has to deal with international interests that might fear us, but have no problem teaming up to beat us, or in reality, to finesse us by bribery, corruption, flattery, and lies.
None of this is good for the world. It only accelerates the corruption of the U.S. way of governance, and moves us further toward the Caesar model, where aggression and threats, and responses to those moves, is the way. It will be the way of war, but not necessarily by military means, because nobody wants to challenge America that way.
The war will be in other domains. like social, economic, cyber, and space. In those areas, we are far from hyper-dominant. In our new Roman Republic model of ruling America, Trump as Consul will likely make short-sighted and self-serving decisions, which will later on come back to bite us.
I had been saying for the last five years that electing Trump in 2020 would have been the best course for America, because remaining in office for 2021-2025 would burn out the Trump drive, while being out of office for those years has made Trump more powerful. Of course, I said that before January 6th, but now it’s too late. We’ve got the Consul version of Trump, with four years to prepare his people, plans, and power.
We are going down this Roman road. At this point, I think we’ve hit peak Roman Republic, but there could be higher peaks. I barely see any resistance. It’s more a mixture of ennui and fascination. As I said, it’s kind of a charm to watch a superpower go this way, if it wasn’t scary as hell.
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Mr. Trump's policy pronouncements are certainly blunter and cruder than what we are used to seeing. They are also more immediate and transparent. I think Trump was elected because the voters lost trust in the government. They did not like things the way they were and did not see anything happening to make changes.
The really sad thing is that the systems that have been built up over the past 80 years that have so benefit us - and the world at large - are being quickly dismantled. As it applies to the US, it's going to make us poorer and reduce our ability to influence events to our benefit as our allies and trade partners move away from us.