The Roman republic died when the Roman people tired of their corrupt ruling class.
The populus fell in love with class traitor Julius Caesar. He at least pretended to love it back. So the elite murdered him just as he was about to make Rome great again. Enter his avenging grandnephew, Octavian, who, over the ensuing decade, would bring the elite to heel and, with the enthusiastic blessing of the populus, take autocratic control of the state.
Octavian, aka the emperor Augustus, took care to preserve the old forms but not their substance. There were consuls and tribunes. The senate still debated. There were elections of a sort. The surviving elite alternately grovelled and resisted ineffectually; its grumbles colour the historical record. But as the autocracy morphed into a hereditary monarchy, the populus was happy. The emperors kept it entertained and fed.
Overheard on the Via Appia circa 40CE: “I’m told the emperor (that would be Caligula, great grandson of Augustus’ wife Livia) wants to make his horse consul. ‘Oh, that’s just his way of talking. You can’t take him seriously. In any event, it’s probably fake news’.”
Last week, president re-elect Donald Trump announced his wish to appoint not a horse but former congressman Matthew Gaetz as his attorney-general. No joke. For real. By resigning his seat, Gaetz, a prime specimen of Florida man, pre-empted a report by the House ethics committee that threatened to expose depravity.
Trump made this pick on impulse, we are told, at the urging of Boris Epshteyn, a Russian-born lawyer under indictment for his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. They were flying between the capital and Trump’s Palm Beach palace.
In the cabin with them was Elon Musk without whose money, cachet and social media platform X, Trump might very well have no mandate. Octavian had the same sort of help from a fabulously wealthy Etruscan, Maecenas, who, like Musk, was also an inspired propagandist. But Maecenas, patron of the poets Virgil and Horace, had better taste in literature.
Gaetz is despised on Capitol Hill by colleagues of both parties. They know him as a botoxed bomb-thrower who likes to brag, with pictures of his sexual adventures. His nomination as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer is Trump’s way of saying oderint dum metuant, let them hate so long as they fear, Caligula’s favourite motto, taken from a revenge play.
Trump thirsts for revenge. He wants a mindlessly loyal thug who will torment “the enemy within”, including the justice department’s staff attorneys and FBI men he believes have maliciously tormented him.
And yet he has to know, as must Gaetz himself, that even with the Republicans now holding a MAGA-fied majority in the Senate, it will only take four to sink the nomination. Judging by the reaction to date many more than that are ready to defy their president on Gaetz. It may not even get that far if the House ethics report is released. House speaker Mike Johnson is working to suppress it.
Why would Trump set himself up for defeat in his hour of triumph? Strategy? Hubris?
One theory holds that he is giving Senate Republicans under their new leader, John Thune of South Dakota, a chance to at least look as though they are doing their jobs by throwing them some obvious duds that have to be rejected even though they are very dear to MAGA. In return he expects Thune to let him bypass the confirmation process for his other nominees by calling spurious recesses during which two-year appointments would slide through without the Senate’s advice and consent.
Gaetz is an obvious candidate for sacrifice. So is Robert Kennedy Jr, the wild eccentric Trump has chosen to be responsible for the nation’s health. RFK’s views, many of which make sense if you can get past the anti-vaccine craziness, render him anathema to Big Pharma, Big Food and anyone who makes a killing off treating rather than curing or preventing chronic illness.
Possibly less expendable is Pete Hegseth, the Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host Trump has tapped for the Pentagon. Hegseth’s sympathy for the “patriots” who stormed the Capitol on January 6 2020, his taste in tattoos associated with white supremacy, and lack of managerial experience — he is untainted by the “swamp” — make him a hero to hard-core MAGA but tough to get confirmed without a fight.
But then it is a fight that Trump might relish — he is itching for a crack at the brass he sees as woke and disloyal.
What’s clear is that Trump and his Maecenas want all the power they can lay their hands on but are going about it rather carelessly. Those whom the gods would destroy — Caligula again springs to mind — they first make mad.
• Barber is a freelance journalist based in Washington.
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