More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, offered sound advice for would-be conspirators—and for rulers seeking to thwart conspiracies.
He did so in The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. In it, he outlined how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms.
One of the longest chapters—Book Three, Chapter Six—covers “Of Conspiracies.” In it, those who wish to conspire against a ruler will find highly useful advice. And so will those who might well become the targets of conspiracies.
For conspirators, there are five ways their efforts can be foiled:
- Discovery through denunciation;
- Discovery through carelessness;
- Discovery through writings;
- Dangers in executing the conspiracy;
- Dangers following the execution of the conspiracy.
Of these dangers, all but the last one have been examined so far.
Dangers following the execution of the conspiracy.
For Machiavelli, the greatest danger following the successful execution of a conspiracy is:
….the attachment of the people to the prince who has been killed. There is no remedy against this, for the conspirators can never secure themselves against a whole people.
[An example of this occurred in] the case of Julius Caesar, who, being beloved by the people, was avenged by them. For having driven the conspirators from Rome, they were the cause of their being all killed at various times and places.
Machiavelli closes his chapter “Of Conspiracies” with advice to rulers on how they should act when they find a conspiracy has been formed against them.
If they discover that a conspiracy exists against them, they must, before punishing its authors, strive to learn its nature and extent. And they must measure the danger posed by the conspirators against their own strength.
And if they find it powerful and alarming, they must not expose it until they have amassed sufficient force to crush it. Otherwise, they will only speed their own destruction. They should try to pretend ignorance of it. If the conspirators find themselves discovered, they will be forced by necessity to act without consideration.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The foregoing was taken from Book Three, Chapter Six, of Machiavelli’s masterwork, The Discourses on Livy, which was published posthumously in 1531.
But elsewhere in this volume, he notes how important it is for rulers to make themselves loved—or at least respected—by their fellow citizens:
Note how much more praise those Emperors merited who, after Rome became an empire, conformed to her laws like good princes, than those who took the opposite course.
Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Auelius did not require the Praetorians nor the multitudinous legions to defend them, because they were protected by their own good conduct, the good will of the people, and by the love of the Senate.
On the other hand, neither the Eastern nor the Western armies saved Caligula, Nero, Vitellius and so many other wicked Emperors from the enemies which their bad conduct and evil lives had raised up against them.
In his better-known work, The Prince, Machiavelli warns rulers who—like Donald Trump—are inclined to rule by fear:
A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.
Donald Trump
By Machiavelli’s standards, Donald Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy.
During his first term as President, he viciously attacked many of the institutions Americans have cherished for more than 200 years. And during the first two years of his second term he has accelerated those attacks.
Among his targets:
- Pardoning about 1,500 of his followers who violently tried to overturn the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election in the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. More than 250 of those pardoned had been convicted of assaulting police.
- Firing the non-partisan board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—and having his toadies illegally rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
- Threatening to demolish the Center when a judge ordered him to remove his name from it.
- Flooding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who terrorized (and in two cases murdered) both American citizens and illegal aliens.
- Demolishing the East Wing of the White House to create a 90,000 square foot ballroom
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
- Repeatedly attacking the nation’s free press as “the enemy of the people” for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters.
- Supporting Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in his efforts to conquer independent Ukraine.
- Demanding that Canada become the 51st state, aggressively raising tariffs on Canadian goods and even threatening military invasion.
As Machiavelli warned:
“When a prince becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing that the prince is widely loathed.”
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HEINRICH HIMMLER/MIKE JOHNSON: “OUR CRIMES ARE NOW YOUR CRIMES”
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 6, 2026 at 12:09 amOn October 4, 1943, SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler addressed SS officers stationed in Posen, Poland, about the ongoing campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
Himmler intended to alert Reich officials of the extermination campaign the Schutzstaffel (“Protective Squads”)—otherwise known as the SS—and Wehrmacht (German army) had been waging since June, 1941.
The purpose: To make his listeners accessories to his monumental crimes—and to warn them there was no turning back.
Heinrich Himmler
Either Nazi Germany won the war that its Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, had unintentionally unleashed on September 1, 1939—or its topmost officials would themselves face extinction as war criminals.
Said Himmler:
“I want to also mention a very difficult subject before you, with complete candor. It should be discussed amongst us, yet nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public. I am talking about the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people.
“It is one of those things that is easily said: ‘The Jewish people is being exterminated.’…Most of you will know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, when 500 are there or when there are 1,000. And to have seen this through and—with the exception of human weakness—to have remained decent, has made us hard and is a page of glory never mentioned and never to be mentioned….”
Fast forward 83 years—to June 26, 2026.
On that day, Mike Johnson (R-LA), Speaker of the House of Representatives, issued a warning about what Republicans stood to lose if Democrats won control of Congress in the upcoming November 3 midterm elections.
He did so at the annual Road to Majority Conference sponsored by the Right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition:
“If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats, y’all, impeachment’s not even the biggest concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors and friends—half of you in this room will be targeted.”
Mike Johnson
Johnson expressed worry over recent primary wins by Democratic Socialist candidates in New York City, then warned, “This is a midterm unlike any other. Not only because of the threats that we face that are very real and must be confronted, but it’s because of a lot of reasons on paper why we should win.
“I run the protection program. I’ll take care of you, okay?”
This was clearly a reference to the Justice Department’s Witness Security Program for organized crime informants. But that program requires career criminals to serve justice by helping to convict their former accomplices.
Johnson’s “program”—if there was one—would protect career criminals from investigation and prosecution.
“This is the most corrupt words to come out of a Speaker’s mouth imaginable,” tweeted Frederick Wellman, Democratic congressional candidate for Missouri’s 2nd District. “The job of Congress isn’t to protect the President and his family. It’s to provide checks and balances on the Executive Branch.
“You’re damn right we will investigate crimes and corruption. Who moved $180 million in oil futures 15 minutes before Iran announcements? Who has gotten sole source contracts because of their connections to the Trump family? Where did our social security data go when DOGE downloaded it into portable hard drives?
“Where are the rest of the Epstein files? On and on this Congress has chosen covering up crimes instead of stopping them. That ends in November.”
Frederick Wellman
And on November 3, it did end. Voters disgusted with Trump’s corruption, vanity projects, endless Iran war and the high prices it created swept Democrats into the House and Senate. In doing so, they ensured Trump’s being a lame-duck President during his last two years in office.
One of these winners was Frederick Wellman.
Mike Johnson was not the only Republican to warn of the punishments facing his fellow party members.
One year earlier, on November 5, 2025, Steve Bannon, former advisor to Trump, issued a warning to his fellow Republicans generally and Stormtrumpers in particular.
He did so at the Conservative Partnership Institute, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit that trains “public policy warriors” who advocate for “conservative principles of liberty and small government.”
Said Bannon:
“And I will tell you right now, as God is my witness. If we lose the midterms, if we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison—myself included. They’re not gonna stop. They are getting more and more and more radical.
“And we have to counter that. And what do we have to counter it with? We have to counter it with more action, more intense action, more urgency. We’re burning daylight.”
Steve Bannon
Even better than their Democratic colleagues, Johnson and Bannon intimately knew the litany of crimes ordered by Trump or committed in his name.
By following the same strategy as Heinrich Himmler, Johnson and Bannon entangled Republicans in their leader’s crimes.
History has brutally condemned those Germans who, knowing the full extent of Adolf Hitler’s crimes, nevertheless signed on to perpetuate and them it.
History will render the same damning verdict against House and Senate Republicans who provided similar cover for the crimes of Donald Trump.
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