Martin Longman is the web editor of the Washington Monthly.
He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. Before joining the Monthly, Martin was a county coordinator for ACORN/Project Vote and a political consultant. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Trump is just a reversion to the historical norm. Since the invention of states, 5000 years ago, most people in most eras have been ruled by princes/kings/emperors who are mostly incompetent, and mostly interested in aggrandizing themselves. The Romans only occasionally got a good emperor, and the 2nd century when they lucked out and got 5 good ones in a row (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, AP, and Marcus Aurelius) was remembered for centuries as the peak of civilization. So much that Gibbon was still raving about it in the 1700s.
Trump is just a reversion to the historical norm. Since the invention of states, 5000 years ago, most people in most eras have been ruled by princes/kings/emperors who are mostly incompetent, and mostly interested in aggrandizing themselves. The Romans only occasionally got a good emperor, and the 2nd century when they lucked out and got 5 good ones in a row (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, AP, and Marcus Aurelius) was remembered for centuries as the peak of civilization. So much that Gibbon was still raving about it in the 1700s.
Maybe 1600 years from now they’ll talk about FDR through LBJ in the same terms, assuming they can forgive Vietnam.