I am going to fall into the trap. The trap that has been set so often now by Donald Trump, the one where you cannot sit in the middle, you are either with him or against him, you must show your hand.

There have been many comparisons recently between the crazy Emperor Nero and the current occupant of the Oval Office. One just has to substitute the word ‘Fiddling’ with ‘Tweeting’ to see that it is not wild comparison.

Nero apparently in the midst of an epidemic had has personal physician Andromachus, drum up a miracle cure called theriac. The modern equivalent of this ancient drug is Hydroxychloroquine. Most people never heard of this drug until recent weeks. A charlatan with dodgy credentials appeared on Fox News and mentions a test in France. Trump runs with it, it’s a “great little test” and “a game changer” he exclaims. The President shamelessly promotes the unproven drug, without any clinical trials. In so doing he completely undermines his country’s leading expert on infectious diseases Dr Anthony Fauci.  The eminent Doctor’s position remains unchanged, stating that there is no conclusive evidence or study to support using this drug as an effective antidote to Covid19.

This is a person who has sacked decorated Generals because he says he knows more about fighting wars than them, who casts government  officials aside and denigrates their competency and loyalty to their country, who grants pardons to his buddies because experienced Judges, in his amazing legal brain, obviously made an error. This person is the first omniscient President the US has ever had. There is no subject he doesn’t know more about than anyone else despite his childlike vocabulary. This is not normal. This person is a dictator in all but name. Everything that exists is there for his political manipulation and the Corona Virus is no different.

I fall into the trap. I think like many observers that I know America. I think this for numerous reasons but mostly because I feel I am a stakeholder. I even have ancestors that shed blood in Tennessee one hundred and fifty-seven years ago to save this glorious experiment in democracy. What has happened to the new Rome? The answer may be in the old Rome when the enlightened and respected Emperor Marcus Aurelius was succeeded by his son, the brutish and tasteless Commodus.

The alternative might be that America was never going to be the New Rome, (the old one wasn’t so great for most citizens anyhow) that despite its adoption of French Republican ideals at its foundation, it has never really embraced true liberty, real equality and the rights of the individual always trumps (no pun) fraternity. This is an society that encourages extreme individualism and less altruism, that despite its huge bloc of religious conservatism, the God universally worshiped is always Mammon. This is a place where the right to have access to a gun is seen as almost inalienable, even when set against the right to life itself. For the majority of the ideal of the American dream is in reality an illusion, blocked off as they are from real opportunities of advancement through lack of money. This is a land where only those who can attract huge financial backers can ever attain the highest office, where elite robber barons protect their wealth and influence in subtle but effective control of the political, fiscal and education systems, where foreign military misadventures that kill millions of people worldwide are portrayed as exercises in spreading ‘freedom’. This is a country where uniforms and flags are worshiped dissent and the cultural myth of doing ‘your service’ is raised to the highest virtue, but don’y dare ask who you are serving? Although not unique it is a place where all discussion is rendered useless by hyper-partisanship and misinformed noise.

It is not that unusual then that an Emperor who will protect the elites, who loves to stand and fight with his detractors in the Coliseum that twitter, is attractive to so many citizens.  Is it really such a surprise that a spoofing conman with a narcissistic streak is so popular in such a society? Is it it not a good fit to have a myth-making leader who measures his accomplishments by his ratings rather than substance. There is something rotten in the State I love and yet it’s hard to see anything but its re-election in November. The tune from this Emperors fiddle is just too sweet for too many.