Now that that’s settled and Trump has achieved what seems to be a comfortable victory, from a historical perspective, there’s some virtue in killing all of your enemies, at least figuratively. Julius Caesar didn’t and was killed almost immediately after having himself declared dictator for life.
In 49 BC, “dictator” meant something different than it does today. Being the “dictator” was an honorable, temporary position implemented only when the Republic faced some dire or existential threat that required a firm hand to fix. Although vested with almost absolute power, a dictator would often be appointed for a finite period, perhaps six months, to deal with the problem and then would return to being whatever he was before, whether a senator, a general, a citizen, or whatever.
Caesar’s problem was that he had kept extending his dictatorship until he had himself declared dictator for life. A month later, he was killed by senators, some of whom were his friends, including, famously, Brutus.
YouTube screen grab.
Caesar’s reign starkly contrasts with that of his adopted son, Caesar Augustus. Augustus reigned for 41 years (the longest of any emperor) and ruled over a relatively peaceful period of consolidation and prosperity. He set the stage for the Romans to remake the Western world, saying: “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” While speaking literally about the city, he was also metaphorically speaking about the Empire, having prepared the way for its long life.
The difference between Caesar and Augustus? Augustus killed all his enemies when consolidating power. By the time he took absolute control over the Republic and transformed it into the Empire, he had no enemies left, or at least none willing to stick their necks out to challenge him. Unlike most Emperors, Augustus died of old age…
Fortunately, Trump doesn’t need to rely on political murder to achieve Augustus’s success. That’s because Augustus isn’t known as Rome’s greatest emperor because he killed all his enemies, something many later Roman emperors did without Augustus’s stellar reputation. Instead, he’s known as Rome’s greatest emperor because he laid the foundations for a relative time of peace and prosperity throughout the Roman world for the subsequent two centuries. Donald Trump can do the same in America without first killing his enemies.
Last week, I listed ten somewhat high-level things Trump should do immediately upon taking office. These included sealing the border, deporting illegal aliens, and cleaning house in the justice / military departments. Here, I’ll suggest two specific things Trump can do that will set America up to prosper and do so without rivers of blood.
First, Trump must target those people in government who have weaponized the state to delegitimize him and keep him from office. That doesn’t mean people who disagree with him, even if they do so vociferously. No, the people he needs to investigate are those people who used the police power of the state to persecute him and illegally jail his advisors and J6 defendants.
Of all of the things that distinguish a tyranny from a free nation, freedom of speech is paramount. A close second is a police power exercised based on actual laws, not on the whims and lies of politicians. If citizens cannot feel confident that staying within the law will keep them safe from the government, what motivates them to obey any laws?
I’m not suggesting that people like Clinton, Pelosi, Schiff, Chaney, etc., be jailed unconstitutionally. On the contrary, I’m suggesting they be investigated, legally and transparently, and, if appropriate, charged. And it’s not only the household names that must be investigated. So too should the leadership of every agency that played a role in putting the country through the last eight years of unconstitutional hell, bringing America to the brink of becoming a third-world tyranny.
Second, Trump should immediately rescind JFK’s most infamous legacy from 1962:
That year, JFK signed executive order 10988 allowing the unionization of the federal work force. This changed everything in the American political system. Kennedy’s order swung open the door for the inexorable rise of a unionized public work force in many states and cities.
This in turn led to the fantastic growth in membership of the public employee unions—The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the teachers’ National Education Association.
They broke the public’s bank. More than that, they entrenched a system of taking money from members’ dues and spending it on political campaigns. Over time, this transformed the Democratic Party into a public-sector dependency.
That Executive Order, more than any other in the 20th century, changed American history for the worse. From that point forward, federal employees—and, over time, state and local employees—could and did unionize against the American people. Rather than carrying out the directives of the Executive Branch, their goal was to extract as much money and benefits as possible from the American people and do so while accomplishing the least amount of actual work possible.
Skeptical? In 2021 the average American private sector employee earned a compensation (salary + benefits) of $88,152, while the average federal employee earned $143,643, fully 62% more. Federal employees quit at a rate that is 75% lower than private sector employees. Today, there are 2.95 million federal employees, or one federal employee for every 118 Americans, whereas, in 1962, it was one for every 226. This is the enforcement arm of the regulatory state that has a chokehold on America.
And this is where Trump can change the trajectory of America’s future. The Heritage Foundation states that federal regulation costs America approximately $300 and $700 billion a year. If Trump can rein in the federal leviathan, that money would stay in American pockets, potentially adding 1% to our GDP annually.
To put that in perspective, GDP has grown by 2.1% over the past 20 years. A 1% addition would result in a doubling GDP in 24 years versus 36 years at that rate. (Rule of 72,) If Trump were to cut the federal workforce back to 1962 levels, Trump would eliminate another $200 billion from federal spending which would add to productivity.
There is no single bigger opportunity today to free Americans and American industry to compete and create, whether it’s creating better widgets, writing smarter AI, making more efficient cars, or developing the next Pet Rock or Christmas antlers. As Johan Norberg chronicles in The Capitalist Manifesto, it’s not capitalism per se. that creates prosperity; it’s free markets and choice.
History shows that no one is better at finding and filling opportunities than American businesses and no one better at creating products and services consumers desire than American entrepreneurs. If Donald Trump can unleash American creativity and productivity even back to the 1980s levels (3.1% GDP growth), never mind 1950s levels (4.2%), he will vanquish his enemies to the dustbin of history far more effectively than he would by turning them into martyrs.
Follow Vince on Twitter at ImperfectUSA.
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