Posts Tagged ‘LAVRENTI BERIA’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 5, 2026 at 12:09 am
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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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 4, 2026 at 12:14 am
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, offered sound advice for how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms.
He did so in The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. One of its 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.
Among his advisories: There are five ways a conspiracy can be foiled:
- Discovery through denunciation;
- Discovery through carelessness;
- Discovery through writings;
- Dangers in executing the conspiracy;
- Dangers following the execution of the conspiracy.
The first two have already been profiled. Now for the remaining three.
Discovery through Writings: You may talk freely with any one man about everything, for unless you have committed yourself in writing, the “Yes” of one man is worth as much as the “No” of another.
Thus, you should guard most carefully against writing, as against a dangerous rock, for nothing will convict you quicker than your own handwriting.
You may escape, then, from the accusation of a single individual, unless you are convicted by some writing or other pledge, which you should be careful never to give.
If you are denounced, there are means of escaping punishment:
- By denying the accusation and claiming that the person making it hates you; or
- Claiming that your accuser was tortured or coerced into giving false testimony against you.
But the most prudent course is to not tell your intentions to anyone, and to carry out the attempt yourself.
Even if you’re not discovered before you carry out your attack, there are still two dangers facing a conspirator:
- Dangers in executing the conspiracy; and
- Dangers following the execution of the conspiracy.
Dangers in Execution: These result from:
- An unexpected change in the routine of the intended target;
- The lack of courage among the conspirators; or
- An error on their part, such as leaving some of those alive whom the conspirators intended to kill.
Adolf Hitler, who claimed to have a sixth-sense for danger, was famous for changing his routine at the last minute.
On November 9, 1939, this instinct saved his life. He had been scheduled to give a long speech at a Munich beer hall before the “Old Fighters” of his storm troopers.
But that evening he cut short his speech and left the beer hall. Forty-five minutes later, a bomb exploded inside a pillar—before which Hitler had been speaking.
An unexpected lack of courage can also doom a conspiracy.
…Two brothers of Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, plotted against his life, and employed for the execution of their plot one Giannes, the Duke’s almoner and musician, who several times at their request brought the Duke to them….but neither of them had the courage to do it.
The conspiracy was discovered, and they bore the penalty of their wickedness and their imprudence.
Conspirators can sabotage their efforts by speaking before acting:
Lucilla, the sister of the Emperor Commodus, ordered Quintianus to kill him. He lay in wait for Commodus at the entrance of the amphitheater, and, on stepping up to him with drawn dagger, cried, “The Senate sends you this!” which caused Quintianus to be arrested before he had time to strike Commodus….
The more people targeted for assassination, the more likely the conspiracy is to fail.
Conspiracies against single individuals are generally apt to fail…but when undertaken against two or more persons, they fail much easier. Such conspiracies present so many difficulties that it is almost impossible that they should succeed.
In fact, to strike two blows of this kind at the same instant and in different places is impracticable, and to attempt to do so at different moments of time would certainly result in the one’s preventing the other.
John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, planned to murder not only Lincoln but two other high-ranking officials: Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward.
On the night of April 14, 1865, Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford’s Theater. But George Alzerodt, who had been picked to murder Johnson, lost his nerve and never tried to carry out his assignment.
And Lewis Powell attacked Seward in his home, stabbing him five times in the face and neck, but failed to kill him. After struggling with a bodyguard and one of Seward’s sons, Powell fled.
Conspirators can also be undone by their good intentions.
In 44 B.C., Gaius Cassius, Marcus Brutus and other Roman senators decided to assassinate Julius Caesar, whose dictatorial ambitions they feared.
Cassius also intended to murder Mark Anthony, Caesar’s strongest ally.
But Brutus objected, fearing the plotters would look like butchers, not saviors. Even worse, he allowed Anthony to deliver a eulogy at Caesar’s funeral.
This proved so inflammatory that the mourners rioted, driving the conspirators out of Rome. Soon afterward, they were defeated in a battle with the legions of Anthony and Octavian Caesar—and forced to commit suicide to avoid capture and execution.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 3, 2026 at 12:38 am
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, offered sound advice on how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms.
He did so in The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. One of its longest chapters—Book Three, Chapter Six—covers “Of Conspiracies.”
This offers sound counsel for those who wish to conspire against a ruler. And for those who might well become the targets of conspiracies.
Among his advisories: A single plotter avoids the danger faced by two or more conspirators:
Since no one knows his intention, he can’t be betrayed by an accomplice.
Anyone may form a plot, whether he is prominent or insignificant, because everyone is at some time allowed to speak to the prince. And he can use this opportunity to satisfy his desire for revenge.
Joseph Stalin, undisputed dictator of the Soviet Union, may well have died at the hands of a single conspirator: His own secret police chief.
Joseph Stalin
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests. During the last weeks of his life, Stalin was planning yet another purge.
Among its intended victims: The highest-ranking officials of his regime.
Then, on March 5, 1953, Stalin died—officially from a cerebral hemorrhage.
In the 2004 book, Stalin’s Last Crime, Vladimir P. Naumov, a Russian historian, and Jonathan Brent, a Yale University Soviet scholar, assert that he might have been poisoned.
If this happened, the occasion was during a final dinner with four members of the Politburo. Two of these were Lavrenti P. Beria, chief of the secret police, and Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded Stalin.
The authors believe that, if Stalin was poisoned, the most likely suspect was Beria. The method: Slipping warfarin, a tasteless and colorless blood thinner also used as a rat killer, into his glass of wine.
In Nikita Khrushchev’s 1970 memoirs, he quotes Beria as telling Vyacheslav M. Molotov, another Politburo member, two months after Stalin’s death: “I did him in! I saved all of you.”
According to Machiavelli: Those who take part in a conspiracy against a ruler are “the great men of the state, or those on terms of familiar intercourse with the prince.”
These are men who have access to him. Julius Caesar, for example, was stabbed to death by members of the Roman Senate, who feared his assuming dictatorial powers.
And Adolf Hitler was conspired against by colonels and generals of the German Army. He was in fact holding a war conference when a briefcase bomb exploded, killing three officers and a stenographer, but leaving Hitler only slightly injured.
Adolf Hitler
There are five ways a conspiracy can be foiled:
- Discovery through denunciation;
- Discovery through carelessness;
- Discovery through writings;
- Dangers in executing the conspiracy;
- Dangers following the execution of the conspiracy.
Discovery through Denunciation: This occurs through treachery or lack of prudence among one or more conspirators.
Treachery is so common that you can safely tell your plans to only your most trusted friends who are willing to risk their lives for your sake. You may find that you have only one or two of these.
But as you are bring more people into the conspiracy, the chances of discovery greatly increase. It’s impossible to find many who can be completely trusted: For their devotion to you must be greater than their sense of danger and fear of punishment.
Discovery through Carelessness: This happens when one of the conspirators speaks incautiously, so that a third person overhears it. Or it may occur from thoughtlessness, when a conspirator tells the secret to his wife or child, or to some other indiscreet person.
When a conspiracy has more than three or four members, its discovery is almost certain, either through treason, imprudence or carelessness.
If more than one conspirator is arrested, the whole plot is discovered, for it will be impossible for any two to agree perfectly as to all their statements.
Niccolo Machiavelli
If one of them becomes fearful—whether it’s the one who was arrested or is still at liberty—discovery of the conspiracy is certain.
The best way to avoid such detection is to confide your project to your intended fellow conspirators at the moment of execution—and not sooner.
A classic example of this occurred in ancient Persia. According to the Greek historian Herodotus: A group of nobles assembled to discuss overthrowing a usurper to the throne. The last one to arrive was Darius.
When one of the conspirators asked, “When should we strike?” Darius replied: “We must either go now at this very moment and carry it into execution, or I shall go and denounce you all. For I will not give any of you time to denounce me.”
At that, they went directly to the palace, assassinated the usurper and proclaimed Darius their new king.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 1, 2026 at 3:51 am
On October 22, Megan Lorraine Utz, 36, of Courtland, Alabama, was charged by the Justice Department with making threats against President Donald Trump. She was also charged with interstate transmission of threatening communication.
According to the indictment and complaint, on October 5, 2026, Utz posted a threat on Facebook regarding Trump’s attendance at the upcoming football game between Alabama and Georgia in Tuscaloosa, Alabama,on October 10.
Utz’s post stated: “He’s not allowed in my stadium! I’ll put a bullet through him if he dares.”
Trump ultimately canceled his planned visit to the game because of Hurricane Isaias.
On October 6, 2026, FBI agents, Secret Service agents, and the Florence Police Department located Utz in Florence, Alabama.
The Florence Police Department arrested Utz pursuant to an active misdemeanor warrant for Harassing Communications issued by the Guin Police Department.
“Threats of violence are taken seriously, and we are committed to protecting the safety of our nation’s leaders,” said U.S. Attorney Phillip W. Williams Jr.
Given the layers of security surrounding Trump, the chances of Utz’ succeeding in assassinating him were microscopically small. But she made them non-existent when she violated a prime instruction by Niccolo Machiavelli.
Specifically:
I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy—but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.
In this case, Trump never even heard the insult and threat. But those charged with protecting him did—and that was enough to guarantee Utz’ arrest and almost certain conviction for threatening the life of the President.
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—such as President Donald J. Trump.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The most dangerous time for a ruler comes when he is universally hated. Thus, in his better-known work, The Prince, published in 1532, Machiavelli advises:
A prince must take great care that nothing goes out of his mouth which is not full of the above-named five qualities, and he should seem to be all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity and religion.
…A prince must show himself a lover of merit, give preferment to the able, and honor those who excel in every art.
Besides this, he ought, at convenient seasons of the year, to keep the people occupied with festivals and shows….mingle with them from time to time, and give them an example of his humanity and munificence, always upholding, however, the majesty of his dignity, which must never be allowed to fail in anything whatever.
Rulers who disregard this advice do so at their peril:
A prince need trouble little about conspiracies when the people are well disposed. But when they are hostile and hold him in hatred, then he must fear everything and everybody….
…[The Roman Emperor Commodus], being of a cruel and bestial disposition, in order to…exercise his rapacity on the people, he sought to favor the soldiers and render them licentious.
On the other hand, by not maintaining his dignity, by often descending into the theater to fight with gladiators and committing other contemptible actions…he became despicable in the eyes of the soldiers. And being hated on the one hand and despised on the other, he was conspired against and killed.
When a ruler becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing he is widely loathed.
So his first priority must be to make himself beloved—or at least avoid hatred.
By doing this, he protects himself from such vengeance-seekers. There are two reasons for this:
- Men rarely risk danger to avenge a wrong; and
- Even if they want to avenge a wrong, they know they will face almost universal condemnation because the prince is held in such high esteem.
Machiavelli draws a distinction between plots and conspiracies.
A plot may be formed by a single individual or by many. The first isn’t a conspiracy, since that would involve at least two participants.
A single plotter avoids the danger faced by two or more conspirators:
Since no one knows his intention, he can’t be betrayed by an accomplice.
Anyone may form a plot, whether he is prominent or insignificant, because everyone is at some time allowed to speak to the prince. And he can use this opportunity to satisfy his desire for revenge.
Joseph Stalin, undisputed dictator of the Soviet Union for almost 30 years, may well have died at the hands of a single conspirator: His own secret police chief.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 13, 2026 at 12:07 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as Gaius Caligula, Adolf Hitler and—possibly—Joseph Stalin.
Death by Fellow Bureaucrat
Joseph Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Joseph Stalin
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Then, on March 5, 1953, Stalin died—officially from a cerebral hemorrhage.
He was 73 and in poor health from a lifetime of smoking, drinking and little exercise. But he could have died of unnatural causes.
In the 2004 book, Stalin’s Last Crime, Vladimir P. Naumov, a Russian historian, and Jonathan Brent, a Yale University Soviet scholar, assert that he might have been poisoned.
If this happened, the occasion was during a final dinner with four members of the Politburo. Two of these were Lavrenti P. Beria, chief of the secret police, and Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded Stalin.
The authors believe that, if Stalin was poisoned, the most likely suspect was Beria. The method: Slipping warfarin, a tasteless and colorless blood thinner also used as a rat killer, into his glass of wine.
In Nikita Khrushchev’s 1970 memoirs, he quotes Beria as telling Vyacheslav M. Molotov, another Politburo member, two months after Stalin’s death: “I did him in! I saved all of you.”
It’s entirely possible that Donald Trump’s “Presidency-for-Life” may end by natural causes.
He’s 79, and despite his repeated boastings that he’s the healthiest President in United States history, clearly he isn’t.
He is grotesquely overweight, doesn’t exercise, falls asleep in public appearances and slurs his words. Much of his diet consists of greasy, artery-clogging fast food—such as from McDonald’s and KFC.
He stays up late at night, pouring out his hatred for countless real and imagined enemies on his website, Truth Social.
But that is not the only way his reign could disappear in other ways:
- The Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet could invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
- Within the Senate and House of Representatives, Republicans could stop backing his every infamy and secure his impeachment and conviction.
- Generals could protest publicly Trump’s attacks on their intelligence and even patriotism—or his racist and sexist firings of professional military officers.
- FBI agents could initiate their own unofficial investigations of Trump’s crimes and leak those results to the press. It was through such leaks that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought down Richard Nixon.
* * * * * * * * * *
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, authored 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 wish to foil such a conspiracy.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Above all, 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.”
By Machiavelli’s standards, Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy:
“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.”
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT (ACA), ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUSTRIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BELGIUM, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BOB WOODWARD, BUZZFEED, CARL BERNSTEIN, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CNN, CONSPIRACIES, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIDEL CASTRO, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, FRANCISCO FRANCO, GAIUS CALIGULA, GAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, GREECE, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOLLAND, HOLOCAUST, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JIMMY KIMMEL, JOSEPH STALIN, KFC, LAVRENTI BERIA, LEON TROTSKY, LETITIA JAMES, MACDONALD’S, MAO ZEDONG, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NORWAY, NPR, NSA, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITBURO, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT PAYNE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SPAIN, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DAILY KOS, THE DISCOURSES ON LIVY (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE RISE AND FALL OF STALIN (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin, VYACHESLAV MOLOTOV, WATERGATE, WORLD WAR 1, WORLD WAR 11, X, YUGOSLAVIA
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 10, 2026 at 12:16 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age. That’s what happened to Francisco Franco (Spain), Mao Zedong (China) and Fidel Castro (Cuba).
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
Death by Bodyguards
First up: Gaius Caligula, the “Mad Emperor” of Imperial Rome.
Caligula’s reign spanned March 18, 37 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D.—four years.
Gaius Caligula
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
He became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began claiming to be a god, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered his victims tortured to death with many slight wounds: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
Among his litany of crimes, according to his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus:
“He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.”
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
His fatal mistake was to taunt Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Death by Suicide
Next up: Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from January 30, 1933, to April 30, 1945—12 years.
He was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary.
Adolf Hitler
He was appointed Chancellor—chief law enforcement officer—of Germany on January 30, 1933, by President Paul von Hindenburg. Upon Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Hitler assumed the Presidency and established himself as absolute dictator.
From 1933 to 1939 he presided over Germany’s rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the defiance of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War 1, and the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, where millions of ethnic Germans lived.
These accomplishments won him widespread popular support.
But after absorbing Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler felt himself invincible. On September 1, 1939, his armies attacked Poland—and unintentionally ignited World War II.
After conquering Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece and Yugoslavia, he made his two greatest mistakes of the war: He invaded the far more powerful Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and declared war on the equally more powerful United States on December 11.
Parallel to unleashing a war that slaughtered 50 million people, Hitler orchestrated the extermination of at least six million Jews during the Holocaust.
By April, 1945, Germany faced destruction from the advancing Russians on the East, and from the advancing Americans on the West.
On April 30, with Russian forces only blocks from his underground bunker, Hitler lifted a heavy 7.65mm Walther PPK pistol to his right temple, bit on a cyanide capsule, and pulled the trigger.
Just as Caligula’s mangled remains were hastily burned and buried in the Horti Lamiani gardens, Hitler’s body was hastily cremated in the Reich Chancellery garden.
Last up: Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Born on December 18, 1878, in Georgia, Russia, he hated Czarist rule and in 1903 joined the Communist Bolsheviks party, led by Vladimir Lenin, to overthrow it.
Joseph Stalin
On November 7, 1917, Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government, which had taken power in February, after Czarist rule collapsed.
Stalin became a member of the new Soviet government, gradually working his way to the position of General Secretary. When Lenin died on January 21, 1924, Stalin outmaneuvered Leon Trotsky, his major rival for the succession, and became absolute dictator.
Starting in 1934, a series of massive purges followed—most notably between August, 1936, and March, 1938.
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Yet Stalin did nothing to calm their fears. He often summoned his “comrades” to the Kremlin for late-night drinking bouts, where he freely humiliated them.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT (ACA), ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUSTRIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BELGIUM, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (C-PAC), CONSPIRACIES, CROOKS AND LIARS, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, FRANCISCO FRANCO, GAIUS CALIGULA, GAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, GREECE, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOLLAND, HOLOCAUST, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JACK SMITH, JAMES COMEY, JAMES ROBART, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEFF SESSIONS, JIMMY KIMMEL, JMES COMEY, JOSEPH STALIN, KFC, LAVRENTI BERIA, LEON TROTSKY, LETITIA JAMES, MACDONALD’S, MAO ZEDONG, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS, NO KINGS MARCHES, NORWAY, NPR, NSA, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITBURO, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROBERT PAYNE, ROD J. ROSENSTEIN, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SPAIN, STEPHEN MILLER, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DAILY KOS, THE DISCOURSES ON LIVY (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE RISE AND FALL OF STALIN (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin, VYACHESLAV MOLOTOV, WORLD WAR 1, WORLD WAR 11, X, XI JINPING, YUGOSLAVIA
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 22, 2025 at 12:11 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as Gaius Caligula, Adolf Hitler and—possibly—Joseph Stalin.
Joseph Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Joseph Stalin
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Then, on March 4, 1953, Moscow Radio announced: “During the night of March 1-2, while in his Moscow apartment, Comrade Stalin suffered a cerebral hemorrhage affecting vital areas of the brain.”
Stalin died on March 5, 1953. He was 73 and in poor health from a lifetime of smoking, drinking and little exercise.
But he could have died of unnatural causes.
In the 2004 book, Stalin’s Last Crime, Vladimir P. Naumov, a Russian historian, and Jonathan Brent, a Yale University Soviet scholar, assert that he might have been poisoned.
If this happened, the occasion was during a final dinner with four members of the Politburo. Two of these were Lavrenti P. Beria, chief of the secret police, and Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded Stalin.
The authors believe that, if Stalin was poisoned, the most likely suspect was Beria. The method: Slipping warfarin, a tasteless and colorless blood thinner also used as a rat killer, into his glass of wine.
In Nikita Khrushchev’s 1970 memoirs, he quotes Beria as telling Vyacheslav M. Molotov, another Politburo member, two months after Stalin’s death: “I did him in! I saved all of you.”
It’s entirely possible that Donald Trump’s “Presidency-for-Life” may end by natural causes.
He’s 79, and despite his repeated boastings that he’s the healthiest President in United States history, clearly he isn’t.
He is grotesquely overweight, doesn’t exercise, falls asleep in public appearances and slurs his words. Much of his diet consists of greasy, artery-clogging fast food—such as from McDonald’s and KFC.
He stays up late at night, pouring out his hatred for countless real and imagined enemies on his website, Truth Social.
But that is not the only way his reign could disappear.
Since retaking office on January 20, Trump has ruled as de-facto dictator. Among his outrages.
- Turning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into his personal Gestapo. Nearly 150,000 people—both illegal aliens and American-born citizens—were arrested between January and late July 2025.
- Purging FBI agents who rightly investigated his illegally confiscating classified documents and inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress.
- Attacking CBS and ABC for their news departments’ accurately covering his litany of mistakes and crimes.
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James for carrying out their legal responsibilities.
- Forcing ABC to (temporarily) cancel Jimmy Kimmel Live! because the comedian made jokes about him.
- Shutting down the Federal Government over Democrats’ refusal to back his gutting of Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to give tax breaks to billionaires.
On June 14, more than five million Americans protested Trump’s rule with a “No Kings” march. And nearly seven million participated in the October 18 march. More are planned.
* * * * * * * * * *
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, offers a stern warning for Trump—a warning he has steadfastly ignored.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In his masterwork, The Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli 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.”
By Machiavelli’s standards, Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy:
“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.”
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT (ACA), ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUSTRIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BELGIUM, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (C-PAC), CONSPIRACIES, CROOKS AND LIARS, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, FRANCISCO FRANCO, GAIUS CALIGULA, GAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, GREECE, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOLLAND, HOLOCAUST, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JACK SMITH, JAMES COMEY, JAMES ROBART, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEFF SESSIONS, JIMMY KIMMEL, JMES COMEY, JOSEPH STALIN, KFC, LAVRENTI BERIA, LEON TROTSKY, LETITIA JAMES, MACDONALD’S, MAO ZEDONG, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS, NO KINGS MARCHES, NORWAY, NPR, NSA, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITBURO, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROBERT PAYNE, ROD J. ROSENSTEIN, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SPAIN, STEPHEN MILLER, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DAILY KOS, THE DISCOURSES ON LIVY (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE RISE AND FALL OF STALIN (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin, VYACHESLAV MOLOTOV, WORLD WAR 1, WORLD WAR 11, X, XI JINPING, YUGOSLAVIA
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 21, 2025 at 12:10 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
First up: Gaius Caligula, the “Mad Emperor” of Imperial Rome.
Caligula’s reign spanned March 18, 37 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D.—four years.
Gaius Caligula
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
He became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began claiming to be a god, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered his victims tortured to death with many slight wounds: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
Among his litany of crimes, according to his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus:
“He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.”
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
His fatal mistake was to taunt Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Next up: Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from January 30, 1933, to April 30, 1945—12 years.
He was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary.
Adolf Hitler
He was appointed Chancellor—chief law enforcement officer—of Germany on January 30, 1933, by President Paul von Hindenburg. Upon Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Hitler assumed the Presidency and established himself as absolute dictator.
From 1933 to 1939 he presided over Germany’s rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the defiance of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War 1, and the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, where millions of ethnic Germans lived.
These accomplishments won him widespread popular support.
But after absorbing Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler felt himself invincible. On September 1, 1939, his armies attacked Poland—and unintentionally ignited World War II.
After conquering Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece and Yugoslavia, he made his two greatest mistakes of the war: He invaded the far more powerful Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and declared war on the equally more powerful United States on December 11.
Parallel to unleashing a war that slaughtered 50 million people, Hitler orchestrated the extermination of at least six million Jews during the Holocaust.
By April, 1945, Germany faced destruction from the advancing Russians on the East, and from the advancing Americans on the West.
On April 30, with Russian forces only blocks from his underground bunker, Hitler lifted a heavy 7.65mm Walther PPK pistol to his right temple, bit on a cyanide capsule, and pulled the trigger.
Just as Caligula’s mangled remains were hastily burned and buried in the Horti Lamiani gardens, Hitler’s body was hastily cremated in the Reich Chancellery garden.
Last up: Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Born on December 18, 1878, in Georgia, Russia, he hated Czarist rule and in 1903 joined the Communist Bolsheviks party, led by Vladimir Lenin, to overthrow it.
Joseph Stalin
On November 7, 1917, Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government, which had taken power in February, after Czarist rule collapsed.
Stalin became a member of the new Soviet government, gradually working his way to the position of General Secretary. When Lenin died on January 21, 1924, Stalin outmaneuvered Leon Trotsky, his major rival for the succession, and became absolute dictator.
Starting in 1934, a series of massive purges followed—most notably between August, 1936, and March, 1938.
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Yet Stalin did nothing to calm their fears. He often summoned his “comrades” to the Kremlin for late-night drinking bouts, where he freely humiliated them.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT (ACA), ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUSTRIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BELGIUM, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (C-PAC), CONSPIRACIES, CROOKS AND LIARS, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, FRANCISCO FRANCO, GAIUS CALIGULA, GAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, GREECE, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOLLAND, HOLOCAUST, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JACK SMITH, JAMES COMEY, JAMES ROBART, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEFF SESSIONS, JIMMY KIMMEL, JMES COMEY, JOSEPH STALIN, KFC, LAVRENTI BERIA, LEON TROTSKY, LETITIA JAMES, MACDONALD’S, MAO ZEDONG, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS, NO KINGS MARCHES, NORWAY, NPR, NSA, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITBURO, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROBERT PAYNE, ROD J. ROSENSTEIN, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SPAIN, STEPHEN MILLER, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DAILY KOS, THE DISCOURSES ON LIVY (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE RISE AND FALL OF STALIN (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin, VYACHESLAV MOLOTOV, WORLD WAR 1, WORLD WAR 11, X, XI JINPING, YUGOSLAVIA
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 20, 2025 at 12:10 am
Long before he took office for the first time on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump never intended to rule as an ordinary President.
Under the Constitution, a President can hold office for—at most—eight years. But a “President-for-Life” can rule until he dies.
That was—and remains—his ambition.
In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, Trump revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.
He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors.
Xi Jinping
Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.
Among these:
- American Intelligence: Even before taking office, Trump refused to accept the findings of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) that Russian Intelligence agents had intervened in the 2016 election to ensure his victory.
- “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
- And when FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning.
- American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
- On November 8, 2018, Trump abruptly fired him, following Democrats’ winning control of the House in the midterm elections.
- He threatened to fire Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- American military agencies: In 2018, Trump refused to visit an American cemetery near Paris and referred to U.S. Marines buried there as “losers” and “suckers.”
- Trump regularly abused military officials, calling Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley a “dumbass” and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.”
Seal of the Department of Defense
- The press: On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
- Appearing before the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24, 2017, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
- The judiciary: Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle US District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first Muslim travel ban.
- In one tweet, Trump claimed: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
- At Trump’s bidding, White House aide Stephen Miller attacked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: “We have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government.”
Donald Trump
Even after leaving the White House in 2021, Trump continued his attacks on one cherished American institution after another:
- Facing 91 criminal counts in four cases, he discredited the judicial system, attacking judges, prosecutors, witnesses—and even their family members.
- He attacked Independent Counsel Jack Smith as “deranged” and accused him of trying to invalidate his candidacy for President in 2024.
- He attacked retired U.S. Army General Mark Milley for calling him “a wannabe dictator,” and said that Milley deserved execution as a traitor.
- Milley had successfully averted war with China by calling his Chinese military counterparts in the final weeks of Trump’s administration to assure them that Trump was not planning to attack China.
- He claimed voter fraud where none existed, casting doubt on the integrity of the electoral system.
- He claimed himself to be the victim of “the deep state” inside the federal bureaucracy.
- He attacked the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding.
* * * * * * * * * *
Donald Trump isn’t crazy, as many of his critics charge. He knows exactly what he’s doing—and why.
He intends to strip every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. If he succeeds, there will be:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No independent military to dissent as he recklessly hurtles toward a nuclear disaster.
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for re-election in 2028—or any other year..
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge his remaining in office as “President-for-Life.”
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
China’s Communist ruler, Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976, at 82, from a series of heart attacks.
And Spain’s Fascist tyrant, Francisco Franco, died on November 20, 1975, at 82, of congestive heart failure.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics on April 10, 2025 at 12:13 am
At one time, Americans believed that the wholesale rewriting of history happened only in the Soviet Union.
“The problem with writing about history in the Soviet Union,” went a popular joke among Russians, “is that you never know what’s going to happen yesterday.”
A classic example of this occurred in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
Lavrentiy Beria had been head of the NKVD, the dreaded predecessor to the KGB, from 1938 to 1953. On June 26, 1953, three months after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Beria was arrested on orders of his fellow Communist Party leaders, who feared he intended to purge them.
Beria was executed on December 23.
Lavrentiy Beria
But the Great Soviet Encyclopedia had just gone to press with a long article singing Beria’s praises.
What to do?
The editors of the Encyclopedia wrote an equally long article about “the Bering Straits,” which was to be pasted over the article about Beria, and sent this off to its subscribers. An unknown number of them decided it was safer to paste accordingly.
Similarly, Joseph Stalin was depicted in Soviet “history” texts as the architect of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany during World War II.
No “historian” dared mention that Stalin’s wholesale purges of the Red Army in the 1930s had made the country vulnerable to the German attack in 1941. As had Stalin’s “nonaggression” pact with Germany in 1939, where he and Adolf Hitler secretly divided Poland between them.
Joseph Stalin
But Russians no longer have a monopoly on rewriting history.
During the 2016 Presidential election, the Republican party furiously rewrote history in a desperate attempt to win the White House.
Specifically, its members tried to convince Americans that:
- President George W. Bush “kept us safe” (excluding, of course, the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, which slaughtered 3,000 Americans); and/or
- President Bush wasn’t to blame for 9/11—it was his predecessor, Bill Clinton (who left office on January 20, eight months earlier).
on J
World Trade Center – September 11, 2001
In 2015, Jeb Bush entered the “Rewriting History for Americans” sweepstakes.
On October 16, 2015, during an interview on Bloomberg TV, Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate for President in 2016, dared speak (for Republicans) the unspeakable:
“When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time. He was President, OK? Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was President. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
Bush was quick to respond on Twitter: “How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump to criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.”
Jeb Bush
Trump replied:
“At the debate you said your brother kept us safe—I wanted to be nice & did not mention the WTC came down during his watch, 9/11.”
And: “No @JebBush, you’re pathetic for saying nothing happened during your brother’s term when the World Trade Center was attacked and came down.”
Suddenly, on February 13, another Republican Presidential candidate rushed to rewrite 9/11: Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio.
According to Rubio: “The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.”
And on the following day, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he again made the charge: “If you’re going to ascribe blame, don’t blame George W. Bush, blame a decision that was made years earlier, not to take out bin Laden when the opportunity presented itself.”
All of which ignored such embarrassing truths as:
- During the first eight months of the Bush Presidency, Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council, was not permitted to brief President Bush, despite mounting evidence of plans for a new Al-Qaeda outrage.
- From January 20 to September 11, 2001, Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, 42% of the time.
- National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice initially refused to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the subject of terrorism. Then she insisted that the matter be handled only by a more junior Deputy Principals meeting.
- Paul Wolfowitz, the number-two man at the Department of Defense, said: “I don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.”
- Even after Clarke outlined the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Wolfowitz-–whose real target was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein—said: “You give bin Laden too much credit.”
- Finally, at a meeting with Rice on September 4, 2001, Clarke challenged her to “picture yourself at a moment when in the very near future Al-Qaeda has killed hundreds of Americans, and imagine asking yourself what you wish then that you had already done.”
- Seven days later, Al-Qaeda struck, and 3,000 Americans died horrifically—and needlessly.
- Neither Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz ever admitted their negligence. Nor has any of them been brought to account.
People who say the Republicans are “batshit crazy” for denying responsibility for 9/11 clearly haven’t read—or understood—George Orwell’s novel, 1984.
The unnamed Party’s slogan is: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
The same holds true for Republicans: They hope to rewrite the past, as Joseph Stalin did, to wash away their crimes and errors–and pin these on their self-declared enemies.
And thus gain—and retain—absolute power over 300 million Americans.
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MACHIAVELLI: A FEW MODEST PROPOSALS FOR CONSPIRATORS–PART FOUR (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 5, 2026 at 12:09 amMore 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:
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:
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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