The more and more this goes on, the more I'm reminded of the hisory of Rome

[packman]

With this Manchin thing, I see our Senate mirroring the ancient Roman's. Their Senate devolved into a do-nothing body which only looked out for their own interests, their own sponsors, their own wealth. It got to the point where bribes and the military decided on who would rule them. Time goes on the people grow weary and angry about the entire thing and eventually a dictator, promising change - any change even be it lies and false hope- takes over the government and installs their own form of rule.

All Hail Emperor Trumpus???

[pecosbob]

1. Proscription was pretty common during the Empire...we could bring it back for the one percent.

Proscription...The act of proscribing; outlawry; denunciation; prohibition; exclusion; specifically, the dooming of citizens to death as public enemies, and the confiscation of their goods.

[CentralMass]

2. tRumpigula

[modrepub]

3. Not A Great Analogy

If you're talking about Caesar, he used the Senate's unpopularity as an elitist body to basically seize control of the government. The Senate had for a long time before (and after) been made up of the mostly landed rich who had despised giving too much power to one person. Thus the Senate appointed two consuls to run things and replaced them on a yearly basis.

Not that Caesar didn't have his own Senate supporters. He had something much more potent, the Army. The Senate factions who opposed him didn't seem to understand that soldiers would be more loyal to their immediate and successful commander than the group that paid them.

When Caesar defied them, they were ill prepared to confront him. They raised an old Roman general Pompey to lead the Senate forces. This quickly went south as the Senate had basically no army to oppose Caesar. They abandon Rome and retreated south then crossed into Greece, which was a mistake.

Pompey's real source of power was in Spain and Gaul when many of his old legions were settled. Caesar's troops secured Italy then worked to control Gaul and Spain before turning to Greece to eliminate Pompey and the remnants of the Senate.

If you're thinking along these lines you'd be more correct if the Republicans put up a popular person with the US Armed forces then used that popularity to basically dissolve the portions of US government that opposed them. Somewhat possible if the bulk of the US military personnel were red-eyed Republicans. Not sure if that is true and the actual US military is very small. More likely that the military industrial complex would be willing to install a "popular" Republican who'd keep the gravy train going.