Trump, an American Pericles: 2 of 3
Ancient Greece did not have a unified central government but many city states — some large, some small. This is comparable to the various states in America’s federal system. Citizens in this geographic area did share history, culture, religion, and language, so the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta might be regarded as a sort of civil war for supremacy over the Greeks. America today, of course, is said to be in a cultural civil war between red and blue factions.
From their perspective, the Spartan opponents regarded themselves as _resisting_ an overbearing, overreaching Athens, led by the elected Pericles, who came to and acted in power much as Trump has. (Unattributed quotations are from Plutarch and Thucydides.) Consider the following parallels:
Pericles was a builder who favored materials such as “brass, ivory, gold” — moreover, he threatened to put his name on every erection: “let the inscription upon the building stand in my name”. Can you think of another developer who enjoys stamping his name upon gilded edifice?
This love of construction notwithstanding, Pericles was criticized for his failure to build… a promised wall. In the words of the comedian Cratinus “Tis long since Pericles, if words would do it | Talked up the wall; yet adds not one mite to it”.
Pericles divorced his wife with whom he had sired children to take up with a foreign harlot. Trump divorced his wife with whom he had sired children to take up, discretely, (allegedly) with the harlot Stormy Daniels and the foreigner Melania.
This xenophilia notwithstanding, Pericles supported immigration restrictions and “proposed a law that those only should be reputed true citizens of Athens who were born of such parents as were both Athenians”.
Pericles was what we’d call a populist. Although coming from a wealthy background, he “took his side, not with the rich and few, but with the many and poor, contrary to his natural bent, which was far from democratical”.
Pericles overcame an aristocratic council of former magistrates known as the Areopagus. He unexpectedly ostracized the incumbent Cimon and, later, the challenger Thucydides (not to be confused with the historian of the same name). “He threw his antagonist out, and broke up the confederacy that had been organized against him”. Trump entered a crowded field as an outsider, won, and politically ostracized his party’s Never Trumpers.
Pericles honored the past. From his famous funeral oration: “I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honour of the first mention… They dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the present time by their valour.” Time and again, Trump honors the founders of America, in contrast with those who think the nation to be irredeemably evil because it was founded in sin. He said on July 4th at Mt. Rushmore, “This monument will never be desecrated, these heroes will never be defaced, their legacy will never, ever be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten”.
Pericles praised the constitution and exceptionalism of Athens: “Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences”. Trump, of course, reveres the Constitution and American exceptionalism. (This is no given — his political predecessor pointedly said America was, basically, like any other nation.) From Trump’s 2020 Constitution Day speech: “To grow up in America is to live in a land where anything is possible, where anyone can rise, and where any dream can come true — all because of the immortal principles our nation’s founders inscribed nearly two and a half centuries ago.”
Pericles was uncompromising against his “civil-war” opponents: “There is one principle, Athenians, which I hold to through everything, and that is the principle of no concession to the Peloponnesians [Spartans].” Yet even as he defended the Athenian empire, he conceded it might not be entirely just: “to recede is no longer possible, if indeed any of you in the alarm of the moment has become enamoured of the honesty of such an unambitious part. For what you hold is, to speak somewhat plainly, a tyranny; to take it perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is unsafe.” Today, calling America inherently evil is a radical position, though any normal person and also Trump will acknowledge many wrongs in the nation’s past. He, like Pericles, argues that we must steel ourselves against the opponent, else lose what is good: “The radicals burning American flags want to burn down the principles enshrined in our founding documents, including the bedrock principle of equal justice under law. In order to radically transform America, they must first cause Americans to lose confidence in who we are, where we came from, and what we believe.”
At the outset of the war, Pericles’ enemies attempted, unsuccessfully, to have him banished (cancelled): “The Lacedaemonians [Spartans], for their part, feeling sure that they could once remove him, they might be at what terms they pleased with the Athenians, sent them word that they should expel the ‘Pollution’ with which Pericles… was tainted… But the issue proved quite contrary to what those who sent the message expected; instead of bringing Pericles under suspicion and reproach, they raised him into yet greater credit and esteem with the citizens, as a man whom their enemies most hated and feared”. Pericles had many political ups and downs, even being, at one point “afraid of impeachment”.
Pericles even complained about getting blamed for… a plague: “the plague has come upon us … It is this, I know, that has had a large share in making me more unpopular than I should otherwise have been — quite undeservedly”. Fairly or unfairly, Trump’s poll numbers took a hit because of COVID.
Though its causes predated him, Pericles was faulted “as the author of the war and the cause of all their misfortunes”. Despite that ”all vented itself upon Pericles”, he not only maintained power but even rebuked his political base: “he was never compelled to flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed so high an estimation that he could afford to anger them by contradiction”. He was “not at all moved by any attacks” but had “capacity to bear the cross-grained humors of their fellow -citizens and colleagues in office”.
