They say history repeats itself. Properly forewarned, it doesn’t have to. As Americans prepare to write a pivotal history for the ages this November—one way or another—it might be helpful to take a quick look at an earlier moment in time when a much divided, fractured world faced a pivotal challenge with one man at the barricade and the rest of the world too complacent to help.
Constantinople, the city that Constantine the Great founded in 330 AD and that the Theodosian walls later protected, stood as the capital of the Roman Empire for 1,000 years. (What we refer to as the Byzantine Empire was back then referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire.) The city, surrounded by water on three sides and walls on the fourth, was thought to be impregnable.
In 1204, Crusaders on the Fourth Crusade attacked Constantinople when they were ostensibly on their way to retake Jerusalem from the Ottomans. Due to dynastic and political battles between the eastern and western Roman Empire, crusaders diverted to Constantinople, sacked the city, and carved up most of the former Empire. (They never did breach the Theodosian walls.)
The Byzantine Empire had been shrinking for centuries and, by 1400, consisted largely of Constantinople and a few Greek outposts. The city, however, which sat at a key point between Asia and Europe, still played a major role in the battle between the East and the West.
Although the rising Ottoman empire, by 1500, would stretch from the modern states of Algeria to Yemen to Hungary, in 1453, Constantinople was still Christian and a major thorn in the side of Muslim Sultan Mehmed II. He planned to fix that.
45% capital gains tax and a 25% tax on unrealized gains. DEI will become the law of the land, with “equity” replacing merit as the fundamental measure upon which society is built. The scientific fact of men and women will be obliterated. They’ll outsource American foreign policy to the WEF and the economy to the climate change cultists. The open border will remain, and millions of 3rd world “refugees” with little appreciation for American mores or no allegiance to the United States will pour over the border and then suddenly not only be able to vote but will get houses for no money down and benefits beyond what citizens receive. And freedom of speech and the Second Amendment will be distant memories before the midterms.
Given this reality, those people who say they cannot in “good conscience” vote for someone they don’t like are, in reality, not of good conscience at all. They’re cowards. As any parents who must discipline their kids knows sometimes adults need to make difficult decision to do things they don’t like. As such, when the Republic is faced with an existential threat, when the choice is between a party that wants to save it and one that seeks Communism, to choose to do nothing is a choice, a choice to empower tyranny.
Once the Republic is gone—in fact, if not in name—all of those issues over which such men of “conscience” are wringing their hands will become moot. Not only will they lose out on those issues, but they will lose out on everything else. In a tyranny, you control nothing, from your money to your family to your voice.
This is the most popular quote of the 20th century: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” As pedestrian as it sounds, in 2024, it might be the most important quote of the day. This November, anyone who decides to sit out the election because they’re offended by an imperfect man, or worse, vote against him because of that imperfection, is literally voting to eviscerate the American republic. They deserve no respect; they deserve disdain, derision, and contempt.
Follow Vince on Twitter at ImperfectUSA.
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