Trump: the Gracchus of our Time

by James Doone

James Doone sees Trump as a reborn Tiberius Gracchus — a nobleman moved by noblesse oblige, beloved by the plebs — whose populist revolt against the elite exposes the fatal flaw of the American Republic and stirs in the masses a yearning for an emperor to forge a new American Empire from the ashes of decline.

Together, we will have one great American future. Our potential is unlimited. We will be one people, under one God, saluting one American flag.

— Donald Trump

DONALDUS TRUMPUS, maybe this epithet works, maybe it is a larp, but one thing is clear to me, Trump is the reborn Gracchi (figuratively speaking) sent by Jove to save the Republic from the ruinous powers of chaos that seek to undo the work of the Founding Fathers (traitors) of the nation. The biggest mistake of the Founding Fathers was that they should have known better due to their deep knowledge of the classical world that founding a republic will inevitably lead to a monarchy, as happened with Rome and Greece and the Germanic tribes. It matters not whether the timeframe is 200 or 2,000 years, the result is the same.

The fact is that men need to be governed and a nation, like a ship, can have only one captain, one leader, such is the definitional and de facto nature of leadership. Every nation will do well to adopt what I call the Stadthalterprinzip, which is the principle that a nation needs one very powerful religious, civil and military leader with near absolute power to rule, but limited by a parliament or some other council of men (unpaid) to prevent tyranny, for the glory of the nation, the health of the families, prosperity of the workers and strength of the army and supremacy of the national religion.

Washington was offered the crown, in the Newburgh Letter, but foolishly turned it down for idealism no doubt, but he should have been a realist and realised his liberal ideas are fiction. Many people outside America are unaware that Alexander Hamilton, one of the major figures of revolutionary and post-revolutionary America was a monarchist who wanted a system of elective monarchy for life. As he said, “And let me observe that an executive is less dangerous to the liberties of the people when in office during life than for seven years. It may be said this constitutes as an elective monarchy… But by making the executive subject to impeachment, the term ‘monarchy’ cannot apply…” to the Constitutional Convention. America is suffering now for her founders’ mistake, sadly. Some say that America shouldn’t become a monarchy as that is against the American mythos, its founding story. Its soul is republican, but I say this is nonsense as America was founded as an English colony of the Kingdom of England and had a king from the first settlers until the American revolt of the 1770s, a period of 200 years or more. 200 years of monarchy.

Why do so many people love Trump? It is his policies, certainly, but this is not the main reason, the principal reason is that he is their leader, he is their KING. To the MAGA base, Trump is the first Caesar of the new empire, with Barron many hope will become the new Augustus, Trump to them is a messiah, a reformer, what Luther is to the Lutherans. However, Trump is not Caesar, nor Sulla, nor Bonaparte, but his style of politics is very reminiscent of Bonapartism — a popular leader, a military man who rules by decree and promotes equality of citizens, conservatism, centralisation and charismatic rule.

I think Academic Agent is right in his idea that MAGA is the fulfilment of the Kali Yuga, but at the same time it is hilarious seeing the Donald do his dance and all the plebeians in their red hats laugh and smile and dance and have fun, as a collective, as a tribe, it is enduring and cosy, like a warm hearth. Trump, if he had the will, could become Caesar, but he will not. He will continue to promote 90s liberalism.

But though Trump is not Julius, there is another Roman statesman that he is closer to archetypically, that of Tiberius Gracchus, the grandson of the legendary Scipio Africanus, the defeater of Hannibal and the maritime empire of Carthage. For those select few who are unaware of who the Brothers Gracchi are, they are famous even in our own time for being reformers of Rome in favour of the common men, the farmers, the urban masses, the proletariat, as the Soviets would say, as the Gracchi, like Sir Thomas More, were held in high esteem in the USSR. Tiberius, being from a noble and famous lineage with illustrious forebears, wanted to change Rome for the better. He saw how the great landowners, the patrician class owners of the latifundia, the huge baronial farms, were driving the poor small Roman farmer out of business since how could a subsistence-level farmer keep up with the massive estates of senators and merchants? He couldn’t, so the rural people had no choice but to sell, at a low rate, and head into the city looking for work. The situation was becoming intolerable, the economy was in fall, and the city was bursting and the nobles were swimming in coin. Something had to change, and Tiberius, and his brother 10 years later, wanted to change Rome by banning Romans from having public land over 500 iugera and any land over this would be distributed to the poor farmers and urban poor — 30 iugera per paterfamilias. The Gracchi were leaders of the Populares ‘political party’ whereas the land barons, like the conscript fathers of the Senate, were members of the Optimes party.

Upon the death of the king of the Greek city of Pergamum in Asia Minor (who left his kingdom to Rome), Tiberius used this to distribute the wealth of the kingdom to the poor. This conflicted with the interests of the patrician class so he was beaten to death and his body thrown in the Tiber river. This is of course an oversimplification, but the point is that Tiberius was a man of the working class, a man of the normal man of Rome, against the elites of his day. So too is the Donald. Trump is the leader of the Trumpians, or the Trumplars (I’ve never liked the term Trumpists, the aforementioned two are better) and like Gracchus, Trump is a member of the wealthy patrician class but with a sense of the noblesse oblige towards the plebs. It is for this reason that the plebs of the Roman republic loved the Gracchi, and why the plebs of the American republic love Trump. He is their leader out of poverty and filth into prosperity and dignity. Trump, regardless of his faults, is a patriot who loves his country, as any sane man does and should hold to. Trump is changing the republic for the benefit of the workers, or at least he wants to and that is enough for the masses to cheer and hold images of him in the street, wear his colour and chant his mantras, and obey his will. They will follow him wherever he goes. He is their king and if history is kind and the fates are aligned, he will become the first emperor of a restored American empire, but may the land of the Britons return to the Celts and be free of the American yoke.

It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them.

— Tiberius

Addendum

If you’d like to read Plutarch’s account of the lives of the Brothers Gracchi, then check out my book on Amazon: Lives of the Brothers Gracchi: Tiberius and Caius by Plutarch of Boeotia (Author), James Doone (Editor), Aubrey Stewart (Translator), George Long (Translator)

If you click on my name you’ll have access to my entire collection of translations of great works of the West.