BREAKING NEWS

[The Conservative]

Trump announces commission to further 'patriotic education.

President Trump on Thursday described America’s heritage and history as under assault from the left, decrying anti-racism teachings and "cancel culture" while announcing plans for a new commission to promote "patriotic education" in U.S. schools.

[Martin Hash]

Those sound like very idiomatic definitions of both "populist" and "elite," so I might ask for a little forgiveness for my confusion.

Maybe somewhere besides here...

Pitchfork carrying mobs (Antifa, BLM) may be the populists you were thinking of? I was thinking the people on this forum; we’re all populists here, even you. The few Elites we had no longer post.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Trump announces commission to further 'patriotic education.

President Trump on Thursday described America’s heritage and history as under assault from the left, decrying anti-racism teachings and "cancel culture" while announcing plans for a new commission to promote "patriotic education" in U.S. schools.

Whoa there tiger. Slow down, Donny.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Those sound like very idiomatic definitions of both "populist" and "elite," so I might ask for a little forgiveness for my confusion.

Maybe somewhere besides here...

Pitchfork carrying mobs (Antifa, BLM) may be the populists you were thinking of? I was thinking the people on this forum; we’re all populists here, even you. The few Elites we had no longer post.

I'd still bet on the effective governance of an aristocrat over a tribune any day.

[Martin Hash]

Those sound like very idiomatic definitions of both "populist" and "elite," so I might ask for a little forgiveness for my confusion.

Maybe somewhere besides here...

Pitchfork carrying mobs (Antifa, BLM) may be the populists you were thinking of? I was thinking the people on this forum; we’re all populists here, even you. The few Elites we had no longer post.

I'd still bet on the effective governance of an aristocrat over a tribune any day.

Rome has 300 good years after Caesar and 100 bad ones; that’s a winning scenario by anyone’s standards.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I’m fully in favor of a dual Consulship. That actually sounds like what the founding fathers would have done, had they known we’d let the executive become so powerful.

[TheOneX]

Personally, I recently have started to go against Washington's warning about parties, and instead embrace them. The fact is in a free country you cannot prevent parties from existing, so you might as well accept them, and form a government around parties. Instead of voting for individuals on election day vote for parties and use a proportionate system. I would just mandate that parties would have to use a democratic process to choose who their seats go to, and only registered party members can vote in the party election. That would probably be the best way to end the duopoly, and avoid situations where the big parties feel like they need to pander to the extremes in order to win. This would probably result in more accurate representation of the people as the 5% of us who vote Libertartian would actually have roughly 5% of the representatives in Congress.

[Martin Hash]

Dude, you just described a parliament.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Maybe somewhere besides here...

Pitchfork carrying mobs (Antifa, BLM) may be the populists you were thinking of? I was thinking the people on this forum; we’re all populists here, even you. The few Elites we had no longer post.

I'd still bet on the effective governance of an aristocrat over a tribune any day.

Rome has 300 good years after Caesar and 100 bad ones; that’s a winning scenario by anyone’s standards.

Rome has had a lot more than 400 years since Caesar - and I would argue it fared better under Alexander VI than Mussolini, with the latter's concern for the "the people" and the former's relative indifference to them.

Italy in general did better under de' Medici aristocratic libertine excesses than under Savonarola's anti-decadent popular appeal.

Populists are, as a general rule, the one's who believe they know what is best for the people. Aristocrats can be relied upon not to give a shit about the common man's behavior, assuming they are sufficiently insulated from the shrieking masses.

[Martin Hash]

Western Rome was over by 400 AD. Constantinople had another millennium though.

The transition from aristocracy to democracy never seems to go very well.

Liberty is so rare (U.S. only), there’s not enough precedent.