‘Red Caesarism’ is rightwing code – and some Republicans are listening
‘Red Caesarism’ is rightwing code – and some Republicans are listening
Argument for a ‘red Caesar’ to rule US may seem esoteric but conservative thinktank behind idea has connections to Trump
In a discussion of possible responses to this conspiracy theory, he wrote that the “New Right now often discusses a Red Caesar, by which it means a leader whose post-Constitutional rule will restore the strength of his people”.
Dictator, they want a dictator
144They’ve always wanted a dictator. This is just their latest euphemism for it.
92When I was an evangelical as a teenager I independently came to the conclusion that the best form or rule was a monarchy. This is what Christianity taught me to think, and it’s what evangelicals think, even if they won’t admit it. Their whole worldview is predicated on a strongman ruling and they can’t separate that from reality.
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It goes to show you how unhinged these people are.
They know they can't say what they're really thinking because they know exactly that their beliefs are morally wrong, are unacceptable, impossible, unrealistic, unstable and mentally unsound.
But if you describe it in a new way, use code words, anagrams, acronyms, special dates or numbers or just some dumb phrase ..... somehow your dumb unhinged political ideas can make sense and they express their unstable logic in public.
It's outright fascism .... it's the same ideas millions of people died fighting against or were killed by in the second world war. And it's fascism that is being casually being promoted and placed in the public forum as a discussion point that can be debated.
The problem is not that there are people advocating for fascism .... the problem is that we are allowing these fascist supporters such a strong and prominent voice.
Call them out for who they are .... fascist scum.
75Not sure anyone should be running Julius Caesar as a poster child for a political movement given that his ended with a bunch of people literally stabbing him in the back.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Julius_Caesar
37These idiots think they will be the ones in power if a dictator takes over. Just look at recent history Stalin, Xi, Putin, Kim Jong Il, they all have killed off the people who brought them to power or who could be perceived as any kind of threat.
They will all be dead or imprisoned within two or three years. Unfortunately for the rest of us we would have to live with their stupidity.
25It's the same with those who want America to be a Christian Theocracy. They all assume that their flavor of Christianity will be in charge. In reality, whichever version of Christianity becomes the "official religion of the Theocratic States of America" would impose its practices on them. Then, they'd complain that they weren't allowed to practice their religion freely. (If only there was some Constitutional Amendment or something which guaranteed Freedom of Religion.)
19And Fascism is especially cannibalistic; one has to be a special kind of stupid to think their life would improve under such a regime.
14Especially if you're already a billionaire.
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they all have killed off the people who brought them to power or who could be perceived as any kind of threat.
So you're saying they don't understand they are the Brown Shirts and will meet the same fate?
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Fascism is the bimbofication of ancient Rome
18Yes, and it hilariously misses that Caesar was in the liberal faction of Roman politics at the time.
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Mussolini and the PNF also loved the Roman Empire, what a coincidence!
17Republicans: "Pasta is unmanly and evil."
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Red Caesarism? Which would imply that it is OK to stick a whole family cutlery set into Trumps back?
15Yuck, it's that "King Cyrus" bullshit all over again.
14How can any true independent or even moderate republican look at these goons and think anything other than “HELL NO”???
13When conservatives give up on democratic views they turn to dictatorship. It's a tale as old as time.
13So... the fasces was an ancient Etruscan symbol that the Romans adopted. After the fall of the Roman empire, the symbol became associated with them and their power and the word itself gained power. It changed a little bit though. It became fascism. So there is a direct line between the oppressive Roman empire and modern fascism.
12I'm not too worried about a Caesarian coup just yet. Outgoing 4-star General Mark Milley made a point of publicly emphasizing that US military members take an oath to defend the US Constitution, not a person, not even the country/population.
Caesarism clearly intends to overthrow the constitutional order, so I don't see the military supporting a Caesarian coup, at least not yet. And you can't overthrow the US constitutional order without the support of the US military.
The transition from Roman Republic to Empire was preceded by decades of civil war and involved armies raised by and loyal to specific warlords. Rome also had a long tradition of legally electing dictators during emergencies. The US has no such traditions or mechanisms. A lot would have to change before the US got to that point.
11Let's just give them a spot to let them do their shit, like the midwest or something. We can call it the Caesarian Section.
Long way to go for that joke but I'm still proud of it.
11More like Orange Cheeserism.
3This is the best summary I could come up with:
In June, rightwing academic Kevin Slack published a book-length polemic claiming that ideas that had emerged from what he called the radical left were now so dominant that the US republic its founders envisioned was effectively at an end.
Slack, a politics professor at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan, made conspiratorial and extreme arguments now common on the antidemocratic right, that “transgenderism, anti-white racism, censorship, cronyism … are now the policies of an entire cosmopolitan class that includes much of the entrenched bureaucracy, the military, the media, and government-sponsored corporations”.
For the last three years, parts of the American right have advocated a theory called Caesarism as an authoritarian solution to the claimed collapse of the US republic in conference rooms, podcasts and the house organs of the extreme right, especially those associated with the Claremont Institute thinktank.
Though on the surface this discussion might seem esoteric, experts who track extremism in the US say that due to their influence on the Republican party, the rightwing intellectuals who espouse these ideas about the attractions of autocracy present a profound threat to American democracy.
Their calls for a “red Caesar” are now only growing louder as Donald Trump, whose supporters attempted to violently halt the election of Joe Biden in 2020, has assumed dominant frontrunner status in the 2024 Republican nomination race.
His diagnosis of US social and cultural life unfolds under a series of subheadings that are almost comical in their disillusionment: “The universities have become evil”, “Our economy is fake”, “The people are corrupt”, “Our civilization has lost the will to live”.
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2This is a helpful reminder that there are left-wing nutjob conspiracy theories just like there are right-wing nutjob conspiracy theories.
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