WAS: What Adults are Saying about Rome as Now
Panem er circesus fooled the dullards then and has made a thundering return
The last time an important Western democracy cut its own throat the Roman Senate was fighting hard to quell an increasingly agitated citizenry. As elites are prone to do, it grappled with doing best for the Empire while giving the masses enough feel-good freedom so they would remain compliant and orderly. That halcyon time was good for many but unsustainable and just as always when anything good gets peeled back, those affected miss it—even the dullards.
The august Roman Senators understood the proverbial ice was thinning in the third and fourth centuries. But just like DeNiro in Raging Bull they were on the ropes and didn’t want to go down. For survival they deployed panem et circenses and civilization has never really been the same anytime leaders wished to quell the anxious kinfolk.
As many know, that little Latin phrase literally translated means “bread and circuses”. These were two staples brought to the itchy, grouchy peoples as a way to sate them. Panem (bread) the mother of all non-mammalian nourishment and circenses (circus) the most ancient form of entertainment extravaganza, might have been the world’s first “lets go out tonight” combo deal. Just enough sustenance was linked with just enough dazzle where you could hug your wife, smile broadly and still get home in time to see Colbert’s monologue. Sure those damn Senators were still screwing up but hey, so what, tomorrow is another day. Besides, we’re dullards.
This tactic has been used countless times to maintain order within democratic social structures. History is also littered with those who held a different view and cared little about mollifying masses. Attila the Hun and Mao Zedong come to mind while Marie Antoniette went headless by suggesting mere cake was sufficient to pacify mutineers. ( She did however make a provocative cameo appearance at the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics).
In America this tactic has been plainly seen in modern times. In FDR’s New Deal abundant efforts to broaden the performing arts sat alongside basic relief for those suffering in the Great Depression. During World War II conscripted actors and entertainers were often assigned to live their civilian selves in entertaining troops at the front and stateside, and contributing to the mammoth “buy war bonds” wartime fund raiser.
Later a voracious America found this approach migrate across government lines into public life. Large business sectors were fueled by developing myriad ways to bait consumers with a better circus and then later, make them feel as though they were all VIP’s as they leveraged 18% credit cards. Naturally this was done to turn down the collective heat rumbling across the countryside. So much so that by the late 1950s when Qualuudes were developed it was impossible to tell if that new pharmacy was “cause” or “effect” of the panem et circenses mindset.
With a new political administration to soon be affirmed the concept has been propelled forward. We get that we, the dullards, amid our angst are to be quelled this way. But what does a country do when the government leaders are the ciccus? As has been written many times in many cultures “putting a clown into a palace does not make him a king, it only makes the palace a circus.” For the second time we face that fate.
If one can separate Trump the politician from he as a WWE character good for you! You are more shrewd and discerning than most. But either way what matters? Trump the performer and Trump the President is the same. No beacon of values, intent, planning, public policy or intellect drives his horizon. Instead personal avarice and preference from the smallest of intellects is paramount. As always in politics, sycophants are abundant to echo these parables and suck hind tit in case something comes their way. Had Trump said he was “mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore” Peter Finch would have risen from his grave and reprised Network as pro bono acting lessons. Of course our new President would have received it with indifference.
If the clown living in the palace with indifference makes it a circus what does that make us, the voters who put him there? In electing Trump as top clown who are we? The rest of us can only receive pies in the face and over-stylized kicks to the ass because we are the lowliest of clowns? Really? Why have we omitted Curly, Larry and Shemp? At a different time they and Graucho and his brothers were the best clowns we ever had! Even as amateurs we learned nothing from them?
America in the post Vietnam era has long had a collective issue of low self-esteem. How else might we have elected some of the over-simplifying, self centered, low IQ caricatures the history books will call former Presidents? When we finally go the way of Rome, a thousand years from now ancient historians will point to us—not the elected—as what killed it. If our progeny knew our current thoughts they might be compelled to defend. Surely the first thing uttered will be they descended from dullards who adored panem et circenses.