"I don't think he goes away. I -- you know, this is a Caesar crossing the Rubicon moment. He's got an army. What's he going to do with that army?"
"I think he's going to be the Che Guevara of deplorables," - Bill Maher on CNN
Or maybe one of history's greatest deplorables - Nero. The problems with this Nero is that his loyal followers act more like unwashed bourgeois French Revolutionaries or revolutionaries of the June Rebellion of 1832.
Nero Nero On The Wall ...
Nero Nero On The Wall ...
We have all been witnessing a candidate for President of the United States who lives in an alternate reality and has convinced a great many people to follow him and do the same. To them, he is a cult hero who speaks the truth but is demonized by the media elite. They listen to him and only to him. Lies! False accusations! All by a rigged system rife with conspiracy! He alone can fix things! He cares for this country!
But more importantly, he cares for THEM. With him "WE HAVE A VOICE!"
Believe it or not, the Roman emperor Nero was very popular with Rome's lower class. Yes, the one who "fiddled while Rome burned."*
"Over the course of his reign, Nero often made rulings that pleased the lower class. Nero was criticized as being obsessed with personal popularity." (emphasis mine)
Nero also considered himself quite the entertainer, giving performances in song and poetry to the public.
For all his likability with the lower classes, however, Nero had a penchant for political power and vengeance:
"To consolidate power, Nero executed a number of people in 62 and 63 including his rivals Pallas, Rubellius Plautus and Faustus Sulla.[61] According to Suetonius, Nero "showed neither discrimination nor moderation in putting to death whomsoever he pleased" during this period."
Vengeance Before Country
And before outlining the list of actions he plans to take after his inauguration, Trump first announced what he intends to do immediately after the election: sue each of the women who’ve publicly accused him of sexual assault, unwanted groping, kissing and other inappropriate behavior.
Parallels to Trump even extend (albeit slightly) to the physical:
"Suetonius describes Nero as 'his hair light blonde, his features regular rather than attractive, his eyes blue and somewhat weak, his neck over thick, his belly prominent, and his legs very slender."
Suetonius, however, didn't say anything about small hands.
Never Concede, Never Surrender
This turbulent election season has fanned the flames of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism and bigotry. Hate speech that typically resides in the dark recesses of the Internet has bubbled into the mainstream and onto Twitter, a popular online hangout for journalists and politicians such as Trump, who has millions of followers there. - Jessica Guyin, USA Today
Both Republicans and Democrats are now becoming fearful of the aftermath of a Clinton win: if he doesn't concede (or gives an oddly-worded concession speech), Trump may continue with the presumption that he had actually won and those die-hards of his deserve a leader to fight for their rightful place in America.
In Lisa Belkin's "Donald Trump's Fine Art of Losing" Donald Trump has never actually admitted defeat in anything. Instead, he just "moves the finish line" to where it appears he has won, or that he has achieved his goal since it was his true goal all along.
So after the election, it would be criminal - in Trump's mind - to concede. In fact, he will count it as a win: so many millions of people in America will, of course, agree with him that he can now do exactly what he wants: create another persona while creating another empire (like Trump TV).
Carl Bernstein:
"... I think the most interesting thing going on right now is Trump saying that he may not go along with the results of this election. What does it really mean? It means, I think, that he is setting himself up as the head of again, I'm going to go back to that neo-fascist term, of a real neo-fascist movement and media empire with the people from Breitbart. His businesses are going into the tank as a result of where he has come out in this election, and there are talks going on... about a media empire. Is there going to be remneants of a neo-fascist movment that he leads after this election? We're in a dangerous place.Breitbart. The KKK, Paramilitary groups. Neo-Nazis**. Pick just about any (or all) of the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of hate groups, and you have a substantial number of loyal Trump supporters. How many? Election results will show you just about the total who either believe Trump or dismiss his lies for compliance with their interests. In other words, the election may show us how many people are either bigots or gullibly desperate. Is there any other group besides these two? Of these, we can deduce that the people who can cause the most harm is of considerable size.
Some say up to 25 million.
25 million people - very angry people.
This turbulent election season has fanned the flames of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism and bigotry. Hate speech that typically resides in the dark recesses of the Internet has bubbled into the mainstream and onto Twitter, a popular online hangout for journalists and politicians such as Trump, who has millions of followers there.
David Brooks of the New York Times:
Two weeks ago, I was in Idaho, and I ran into a guy who said, well, obviously Trump is going to win because everybody I know is voting for him. And I tried to persuade — argue with this guy, well, if you look at the polls, he is actually not leading.
And this guy just wouldn’t accept that. That was not part of his lived reality. And you got the sense a guy like that, if Trump does lose, will be very angry and disbelieving and may be sensitive to the idea that the election was rigged.
David French, a writer for National Review who was briefly considered as an independent candidate for President, criticized our beloved Ann Coulter(geist) in a column. Immediately the tweets started:
"I distinctly remember the first time I saw a picture of my then-seven-year-old daughter’s face in a gas chamber. It was the evening of September 17, 2015. I had just posted a short item to the Corner calling out notorious Trump ally Ann Coulter for aping the white-nationalist language and rhetoric of the so-called alt-right. Within minutes, the tweets came flooding in. My youngest daughter is African American, adopted from Ethiopia, and in alt-right circles that’s an unforgivable sin. It’s called “race-cucking” or “raising the enemy.”French's wife who also writes for the blog, Patheos, received even more violent tweets with grisly images and, at one point,
"... an angry voice actually broke into a phone conversation between my wife and her elderly father, screaming about Trump and spewing profanities. My wife was on her iPhone. Her father was on a landline."Then there's David Riden, a delegate to the RNC:
Riden told Mother Jones in an interview that US leaders who violate the Constitution may have to be done away with: "The polite word is 'eliminated,'" he said. "The harsh word is 'killed.'"
Trump TV
"His businesses are going into the tank as a result of where he has come out in this election, and there are talks going on... about a media empire. Is there going to be remnants of a neo-fascist movement that he leads after this election? We're in a dangerous place."
Carl Bernstein may have hit on something: speculation about a "media empire" is rife on social media. Trump, Steve Bannon of Breitbart and Roger Ailes (formerly of Fox), coupled with 25 million rabid fans could become a force to be reckoned with And although some think it highly unlikely***
The Aftermath
Upon a likely Trump loss, we can deduce several things: Trump will probably not concede, claiming the election is rigged (and insulting America's very foundation), reactions may be violent - certainly as ugly as Trump's rhetoric ... and Donald Trump will not go away quietly, if at all, resulting in a difficult tenure for Clinton and even a chaotic four years in our government.
We face more years of Donald Trump's inflated ego screaming at every political process, every politician, every American who cries for respite from Donald Trump. And we face his rabid cult supporters.
America's Civil War began 156 years ago. It was arguably the worst time in America's history. Along with battling Islamic terrorists worldwide, can we afford another one?
***
The YouTube description (complete with a much younger/thumbnail picture of Trump):
Published on Sep 19, 2016
Over 200k Views! Original!
All over the world - the spread of the Trump revolution continues for a free people and sovereign nations free from the clutches of globalism and Islamic terrorism. If being nationalistic, patriotic, and free people who enjoy the riches of modern civilization is considered "deplorable" then count us in and consider us UNITED!
*Another myth dispelled:
According to Tacitus, upon hearing news of the fire, Nero returned to Rome to organize a relief effort, which he paid for from his own funds.[101] Nero's contributions to the relief extended to personally taking part in the search for and rescue of victims of the blaze, spending days searching the debris without even his bodyguards.[citation needed] After the fire, Nero opened his palaces to provide shelter for the homeless, and arranged for food supplies to be delivered in order to prevent starvation among the survivors.[101]
*** To the dismay (and embarassment) of Trump and his supports, the domain name of Trump.tv has already been picked up by someone at auction. Trump plans to sue, of course, but the person openly mocks such a feeble attempt.
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