Now that that’s settled and Trump has achieved what seems to be a comfortable victory, from a historical perspective, there’s some virtue in killing all of your enemies, at least figuratively.

Julius Caesar didn’t and was killed almost immediately after having himself declared dictator for life.

In 49 BC, “dictator” meant something different than it does today.

Being the “dictator” was an honorable, temporary position implemented only when the Republic faced some dire or existential threat that required a firm hand to fix.

Although vested with almost absolute power, a dictator would often be appointed for a finite period, perhaps six months, to deal with the problem and then would return to being whatever he was before, whether a senator, a general, a citizen, or whatever.

Caesar’s reign starkly contrasts with that of his adopted son, Caesar Augustus. Augustus reigned for 41 years (the longest of any emperor) and ruled over a relatively peaceful period of consolidation and prosperity.

He set the stage for the Romans to remake the Western world, saying: “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.”

While speaking literally about the city, he was also metaphorically speaking about the Empire, having prepared the way for its long life.

The difference between Caesar and Augustus?

Augustus killed all his enemies when consolidating power….Fortunately, Trump doesn’t need to rely on political murder to achieve Augustus’s success. That’s because Augustus isn’t known as Rome’s greatest emperor because he killed all his enemies, something many later Roman emperors did without Augustus’s stellar reputation. Instead, he’s known as Rome’s greatest emperor because he laid the foundations for a relative time of peace and prosperity throughout the Roman world for the subsequent two centuries. Donald Trump can do the same in America without first killing his enemies.

The website, Dictionary.com defines kakistocracy as “a government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.”

Other sources concur, describing it as leadership by the least competent and most unscrupulous.

It’s a head-scratcher, really—how do these individuals manage to fail their way upward and claim the most powerful seats in government?

If you’ve been keeping up with current events, it’s hard not to conclude that the United States is stumbling into a kakistocracy.

Case in point is a president, an “elderly man with a poor memory,”  whose cognitive issues and frail health allowed him to dodge legal scrutiny under the guise of public sympathy.

Joe Biden was never known as the “sharpest knife in the drawer,” but his current level of performance became so glaringly destitute that he required strong “encouragement” to abandon his re-election ambitions.

And yet, the problem of obvious ineffectiveness isn’t just a “Joe thing.”

Glancing at the Cabinet and other key positions of this administration, does anyone inspire confidence or stand out as the poster child of competence? Anyone? Bueller?

History is littered with examples of kakistocracies.

My friend asked me a question. Did I think the Democrats will remove Biden if Harris loses the election? Yes.

Do I think the leading Democrats would jump at the chance to score so many firsts, even if it means depriving some future woman, Asian, Indian, or female of African descent who campaigned for and won the presidency? These grasping, corrupt, lying leftists? Yes.

November 5, 2024, through January 1, 2025, is 75 days. What might “President Harris” accomplish?

First and most obviously, moving the Bidens out and her family in. There’s no time to redecorate as she did as Vice President, although there might be time to change the stationery.

The first order of real business would be for Harris to nominate her Vice President.

Would it be Tim Walz? Would she opt out of that awkward relationship with a man about whom questions regarding his eligibility for a security clearance have been raised?

Her VP pick would need a majority vote from both the House and the Senate. Would Speaker Johnson require hearings if the nominee was one of today’s skeezy Dem leaders?