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Comment by ceilingcorner | Hacker News Reader

I don't think this is a very good analysis. If Trump can be compared to a Roman figure, it is most likely Sulla. He (Trump) proved that a non-politician could rise to power on a populist program, but ultimately ended up having little actual influence himself. If we are in a similar scenario to the late Republic, we still have a few decades before a Caesar is to appear.

This is still a huge stretch and I don't think modern America is very comparable to Rome.

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> This is still a huge stretch and I don't think modern America is very comparable to Rome.

How did you arrive at the idea that I am trying to establish equivalence or close comparabilty? The point of this writing is not that, but to suss out similar aspects, and see what we can learn from them. In particular I was exploring the populism aspect (as is reflected in the title), specifically the part where Free Trade impoverished the middle class and alienated people from elites, thus creating fertile ground for populism. Surely that is comparable?

The flaw in the comparison is that America is largely built on its middle class, while no such thing existed in Rome. You would need the middle class to erode into a working class for the sociopolitical system to be similar.

Wikipedia: Sulla played an important role in the long political struggle between the optimates and populares factions at Rome. He was a leader of the former, which sought to maintain the senatorial supremacy against the populist reforms advocated by the latter, headed by Marius.

So I don’t see how Trump is Sulla.

Don’t get caught up in the specific political allegiances. Trump is Sulla because he proved that a non-politician could take the presidency, but he himself was not the person to take this to its conclusion. I see him as the forerunner of a future populist candidate that will come from outside the political class. In the same way that Sulla was a predecessor of Caesarian action.

Caesar famously said that if Sulla could do it, then he could too.

Weird example but David Lynch the filmmaker said something very similar to this. I can’t find the exact quote, but he said something like “Trump has opened the door to future candidates like him, from outside the political class.”

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