January 20 Marks the Return of the Era of Criminal Rulers

Actions Have Consequences

Make no mistake —January 20 —the inauguration of the first president who tried to reverse an election result by force marks a new era for the US and the world. We now resume a dark and bloody history of monarchs and would be dictators who sought to use power to seize the throne. Shakespeare like his Greek forebears fascinated by how one royal crime led to others and that there is no real way to stop the wheels of history from being a story of how violence and retribution once the wheel is set in motion. We thought that was a world we had largely left in the west—that we were now too civilized and too educated to allow ourselves to be taken down that dark road by some kind of vengeful politician prepared to throw out all the norms that we all thought were now accepted.

Lets start from the beginning: before becoming king, Henry Bolingbroke led a rebellion against his cousin, King Richard II, resulting in Richard's forced abdication and probable murder before taking the throne, Richard served as Lord Protector for his nephews, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury. The boys were declared illegitimate, and Richard became king. Their subsequent disappearance remains a great mystery, with many accusing Richard of foul play. Over in Russia —before becoming empress, Catherine conspired against her husband, Tsar Peter III. With the help of her lover, Grigory Orlov, and other allies, she staged a coup, leading to Peter's abdication and eventual assassination under mysterious circumstances.

These brutal efforts to seize power had consequences. For example, Henry IV's overthrow of Richard II destabilized the norms and contributed to the Wars of the Roses, a prolonged and bloody conflict over succession. Catherine’s rise to power through a coup reinforced the precedent that might and intrigue could determine succession in Russia.

Of course the closest analogy to the reality we find ourselves on January 20 resembles Hitler’s attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich in an effort to seize national power. Although imprisoned, Hitler used his trial as a propaganda platform. After serving just nine months of a five-year sentence he paid the whole world back for what he considered his Trump like victimization by the deep state. We all had to pay a heavy price for his persecution complex. 200 million people were killed following his selection as Chancelor in 1933.

As Robert Louis Stevenson memorably once said—”Sooner or later we all sit down to the banquet of consequences” —let us hope and pray that the event of inaugurating a 34 count felon as president with two impeachments on January 20 is not as harmful as these precedents suggest.