Kristol: "The speed with which we're recapitulating the decline and fall of Rome is impressive....."

[steve2470]

The speed with which we're recapitulating the decline and fall of Rome is impressive. What took Rome centuries we're achieving in months.

Link to tweet

Too bad Trump's diehard supporters don't see this. Kristol gets the stopped clock award here!

[Blecht]

1. Fuck Bill Kristol

He is one of the main reasons for the situation we find ourselves in. Trump is the result of the last thirty years of people like Kristol spouting their crap.

[enough]

3. Right on. NT

[Raster]

7. I heartily second that sentiment.

Bill has a sad... someone even more crass and craven than his PNAC cohorts. Who could have predicted something like this?

[Maven]

8. 100% right.

Fuck every blowhard like Kristol that spent decades maligning "intellectual elites" and telling people government was the problem, and now want to play "responsible conservative".

[StevieM]

14. Reagan took office 36 years ago. That was a big turning point for our country,

and not for the better.

[Blecht]

18. My first vote cast in a Presidential election was for Carter in 1980

I still remember the horrible feeling on election night. I knew it was the beginning of something awful.

[StevieM]

21. If you think Reagan and Trump are bad, wait until we get President Kris Kobach. (eom)

[Zorro]

2. It's your Republican party who's making this happen, Bill

And you have played a prominent role in the rapid decline of this great country.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. Even a broken toilet can be right twice a day. nt

[Sugar Smack]

5. Yeah. Many thanks for your own contributions, Bill.

Have some more pie.

[Raster]

6. We have Nero and Caligula rolled in to one big mass of mess.

And how fitting, Bill that you reference Rome again. Weren't you and your PNAC cohorts projecting that the US would be the "New Rome," and this would be our "American Century" under Emperor Chimpus* the First?

[DetlefK]

9. Rome collapsed because of rampant tax-evasion and declining revenue.

Rome was built and sustained by conquering and pillaging other countries, not by taxes. Rome eventually over-extended its borders and ran out of people it could rob: The only alternatives were either too far away (Middle East), too poor (Eastern Europe) or too much effort to conquer (Scotland and Northern Germany).

At the same time, tax-evasion was rampant among the roman aristocracy. Without money, Rome couldn't sustain it's army, which meant less territory, which meant even less tax-revenue. At the same time, the tribes at the borders began to push.

The Roman Empire shrank and shrank, propped up only by the power of its german allies from across the Alps. Eventually, the Germans simply took over the last remnant in a coup and that was it.

[marylandblue]

10. Does he mean the fall of the empire or the fall of the republic?

Because it seems to me, we are redoing the fall of the Republic right now. Rome was powerful militarily, but rotting from within. The voice of the people was not heard, and they were angry. Because they were angry, they were easy marks for demagogues like Caesar.

[Efilroft Sul]

15. I hear echoes of the Roman Republic's fall.

We're in that period between the assassinations of the Gracchi and the rise of Julius Caesar as dictator for life. There was roughly a 90-year period between the death of Tiberius Gracchus and the death of Julius Caesar. If JFK and RFK were the American Gracchi, we're a little bit past the halfway mark to the death of a Caesar, when Sulla and Marius vied for control of the Republic. Trump is Sulla and Clinton is Marius. If Trump gets backed into a corner with the Russian/money laundering investigations and continues to receive the hell he so richly deserves for his administration's fascist overreach, I could see him enacting a pogrom list like Sulla did and going after his political enemies.

[nocalflea]

11. Bill might be disgusted, but he certainly isn't "woke'.

I fear he's more upset by the US's standing in the world than the attack on constitutional rights,balances and protections. I know he doesn't give a damn about the dismantling of safety net programs,environmental protections or anyone's healthcare. For him it's all about world status and now he's embarrassed . Talk about elitist.

[workinclasszero]

13. Who did Kristol vote for in the last presidential election?

You voted for Nero, Kristol so STFU or work to defeat republicanism, asshole!

[malaise]

16. Not really

He was revving the engines leading here decades ago. Fugg him!

[LittleBlue]

17. Eh, that's just hyperbole

Trump's power is impaired by the checks and balances built into the system. Rome never had that during the imperial era.

Just like when Bush left power, we will still be the strongest consumer economy on earth with the most technologically advanced industries, the only military superpower, the home of global finance, the world's reserve currency, and in possession a global breadbasket and vast quantities of oil and natural gas.

We'll dust ourselves off and get right back up.

[Hekate]

19. I find myself murmuring: Who knew it could all be undone so *fast*?

Our republic and our democracy are in mortal peril, far worse than BushCheney, far worse than Nixon -- although in their own ways they sowed seeds of destruction, I don't think they really meant to bring the whole thing down the way Bannon and the other enablers do.

[localroger]

20. The good news is, Bill Kristol has never been right about anything /nt

[Cha]

22. Thank you, steve