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.”