The Acropolis in Athens, Greece
"Pericles On The Potomac"
by Bill Bonner
‘I can do whatever I wanna do.
Because I’m the president of the United States.’
- Donald Trump
Poitou, France - "We’ve been tracking what we see as a shift from more or less consensual democracy...to Big Man democracy. This trend is new to the US but familiar in other countries. And it was foretold by the ancients. Thucydides commented: “Athens, though still in name a democracy, was in fact ruled by her greatest citizen...”
The ‘greatest citizen’ Thucydides was talking about was Pericles...a prototypical Big Man leader. He ostracized his opponents. He gave out favors to the lower classes - much like Trump’s ‘no tax on tips’ program. He tightened restrictions on Athenian citizenship. He built great monuments, including the Parthenon. He spent too much money. And he promoted a long-running war with Sparta which ended badly; Sparta captured Athens and looted the city.
Sometimes people agree. Sometimes they can’t. And when they can’t agree, they may need more muscular leadership to put an end to the squabbling. A headline at Bloomberg suggests that some European countries may be headed that way too: "Much of Europe is Losing the Ability to Govern." Anatol Lieven adds: "France may be the latest domino to fall as debt crisis sparks an austerity backlash."
Typically, consensus collects around principles or rules, like iron filings around a magnet. We drive on the right (or left!) side of the road. We agree not to kill each other. We say please and thank you...even to people we don’t especially like. And whether we are a men’s choir or a sewing bee, we find common ground.
Even armies have sometimes relied on consensus rather than command. The anarchist militias in the Spanish Civil war elected their officers and debated their tactics. George Orwell reported that they were effective military units. In the business world...and even in church vestry meetings...ideas collide. The most attractive ones - or those put forward by the most forceful and persuasive proponents - survive. The rest are discarded or held for further discussion.
The recent, televised White House cabinet meeting was something different. Big Men do not like to be constrained, neither by rules...nor by consensus. They need lackeys to carry out their plans, not independent thinkers to challenge them. So, their meetings take on a character that is unlike anything we are used to.
Cabinet members are supposed to be some of the most able people in the country. And yet, if this was a battle of ideas, all the participants came unarmed. They did not offer new and better suggestions. They did not come to debate bold new plans. Instead, they seemed to be there only to praise POTUS.
Of course, the liberal media howled its calumnies and contempt. Jen Psaki: ‘Trump’s groveling, cult-like White House Cabinet meetings go from bad to worse.’
Washington Examiner: ‘Team of sycophants: Cabinet lines up to lavish praise on Trump.’
Rolling Stone: "TRUMP’S CABINET MEETING WAS STUFFED WITH FLATTERY FOR DEAR LEADER. ‘The televised groveling festival lasted over three hours.’
The most admirable aspect of this show was the endurance of the grovelers. These were middle-aged men and women. They must have had other things to do. Of course, some of the cabinet members are stuffed shirts and placeholders. But others are rich and powerful. All are adults. And yet, they all played their roles - with no apparent irony, residual dignity or need to go to the bathroom. They were the shameless suck-ups a Big Man needs.
We were reminded about meetings of the North Korean politburo...or of Stalin’s speeches in the Kremlin. After one of those speeches the clapping went on for eleven minutes. No one wanted to be the first to stop. Eventually, the manager of a paper factory dared to sit down. He was arrested that same night and sentenced to ten years of hard labor in the Gulag. Over a million people were killed by Stalin’s goons. Millions more were sent to the Gulag, most of whom died.
But Stalin was right. If you want to govern as a Big Man, you’ve got to weed out the unreliable little men. The first one to stop clapping was probably the most independent thinker in the group. Independent thinking is the last thing the Big Man wants. There was no independent thought on display in the Trump cabinet. Instead, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer was almost in rapture: “To see your big, beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor, because you are really the transformational president of the American worker.”
Trump’s former business partner, Steve Witkoff, now on the public payroll, said this: “Mr. President, working for this government, for you, is the greatest honor of my life...There’s only one thing I wish for: That that Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since this Nobel award was ever talked about to receive that reward beyond your success is game-changing out in the world today...”
But Scott Bessent, Treasury secretary, probably gave the most endearing performance. He spoke like an amateur, which made it sound sincere: “Our country has never been so secure thanks to you...You brought us back from the edge.”
’With debt scheduled to increase to $60 trillion in 10 years,’ a braver cabinet member might have asked, ‘and since we haven’t cut a single penny of spending, net, aren’t we still headed to the edge?’ But the question never came up. It wasn’t one the Big Man wanted to hear.
Whatever else could be said about these performances, they are surely taking sycophancy in American politics to a new level. Mr. Trump is the proverbial bull in a china shop. He just rocked the Fed by ‘firing’ one of its governors. He disrupted trillions in commerce with his trade wars. He bombs foreign nations. He proposes to annex Greenland. He suggests he might need to send US troops into Mexico. He imposes federal troops on US cities. At home and abroad, people wonder and worry about what he will do next. And says Scott Bessent: “And you, sir, are restoring trust to government.”
The mainstream press harrumphed. But this is just how Big Man government works. It’s the Big Man himself who counts. He’s the star. The rest of the cast are stage hands...holding up the lights so we can see him in all his glory."
