“Panem et circenses” – bread and circuses – had become fixed in Roman culture by the time Commodus, the reckless son of Marcus Aurelius, became sole emperor in AD 180 – the year that triggered Rome’s decline, some historians say.
To keep power, Roman leaders used free “bread” (the public dole) and free “circuses” (public entertainments) to distract the populace from rioting when they had real things to riot about.
But once the dole was instituted and gradually extended to include free pork, free olive oil and other free stuff, it created an insidious “right” that no senator, no emperor – no matter how great or ruthless – dared to take away.
So the people’s lust to get something for nothing, and politicians’ lust for power and loyalty, congealed to cement “bread and circuses” into a domestic Rubicon that neither crossed. Government’s obsession became how to pay for it all.
Emperors died, but the dole lived on. So did amusements. And so did real problems.
Over time, the people became so addicted to “superficial appeasements” that they no longer cared about Rome’s history, the real issues that drove national longevity, or the gradual loss of their political rights, according to Juvenal, Roman satirist. Their “right” to be fed and amused by the government trumped everything.
“… Already long ago,” Juvenal wrote in his Satire X (AD 100), “from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions – everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”
No emperor immersed himself in the superficial circus of political power like the cruel and incompetent Lucius Aurelius Commodus, who historian Cassius Dio wrote was a greater curse to Romans than all diseases and criminals combined.
Commodus was the only emperor in Roman history to “fight” in the great Colosseum as a gladiator – fights that were always rigged in his favor. At a time when governance and stability in Rome was crumbling, Commodus was obsessed with “circus” – entering the great arena to kill hundreds of wild beasts, and to “defeat” the mightiest of gladiators to the forced cheers of appalled spectators.
While he did it, in part, to create the perception that he was the actual incarnation of the mythical god Hercules, he only fooled himself. Commodus crossed the line. Roman citizens were not amused.
Gladiators were largely made up of slaves, ex-slaves, war prisoners, and criminals. An emperor fighting in the arena was unbecoming, scandalous, and a national disgrace. Spectators much preferred, as Herodotus wrote, that their emperor took up arms against Rome’s real enemies.
So a plot was hatched to have him strangled by a wrestler and great efforts were exerted to erase him from Roman history.
Like Commodus, Biden and the Democrats – the party that’s been rotting America’s sweet tooth with free “bread” for decades (the New Deal, the Great Society, Obamacare, the Green New Deal, etc.) – have today stepped over into a savage political arena that’s obsessed with producing endless spectacles designed to distract the public from real issues. They’re unbecoming, scandalous, and a national disgrace.
With Americans crammed inside a modern-day “Colosseum” – television and social media – the wizardry of technology has made it possible for vile politicians, and activists costumed as journalists, to create an alternate universe that’s fixated on solving imaginary problems with mythical solutions.
And they’re out for blood.
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a 1973 decision that created a right out of nothing, the same “protectors of democracy” who called the Jan. 6 riot an “insurrection” rushed to beat down justices with ridicule, impeachment talk, and death threats.
It didn’t matter that the Dobbs decision returned the issue back to the states. Still, Joe Biden told Americans that the court took away a constitutional right. Maxine Waters screeched, “To Hell with the Supreme Court!” Monica Lewinsky raged on Twitter, “… get rid of the filibuster, pack the f—king court.” The kid-shoving Nancy Pelosi called justices “Trump’s Supreme Court” and “extreme.” AOC, Elizabeth Warren and a chorus of Democrats hee-hawed that the high court is “illegitimate.” Samuel L. Jackson, who defamed Justice Thomas as “Uncle Clarence,” joined in the court-bashing with a constellation of the usual stars who never say a word about the real problems that slap us in the face every day.
The same people who twisted Trump’s “peacefully and patriotically” comment to mean a call to arms themselves incite violence in the streets, and they openly rigged the Jan. 6 committee to kill a Trump 2024 run and to shame and criminalize supporters of the “MAGA movement.” The J6 show trial is a re-run of the two-year Russian collusion spectacle and the two Trump impeachments.
Colluding with corporate America, Big Tech, and government agencies, they choreographed the response to COVID to enforce lockdowns, and to push for a vaccine mandate that cost people their jobs (including doctors and nurses), ruined military careers, vilified “non-vaxxers,” and jeopardized the health of schoolchildren, perhaps for life.
Days ago the CDC and the FDA, working with big drug companies, created the illusion that COVID vaccine approvals for 6-month-olds is a good thing. To be true, we must pretend that the vaccine is not under an Emergency Use Authorization; that qualifying under EUA doesn’t require an actual emergency; that there are no other treatments for COVID; and as more doctors learn that their sickest COVID patients are vaxxed and double-boosted, we must pretend that the vaccine actually works.
As we sit and watch real problems slowly rot our institutions, Biden – pretending to be Hercules – uses “bread and circuses” to distract the people while he fixates on emptying the nation’s treasury on myths and phantoms:, climate change, white supremacy, inclusiveness, globalism, equity, etc.
It’s a sick clown show, but Americans are not amused.
Biden and the Democrats jumping into a savage arena to play political games with our sacred institutions has crossed a line. The sugar-high is wearing off. More and more Americans, despite the noisy spectacles being dramatized in the “Colosseum,” are starting to be eaten alive by raging inflation and so many real problems.
This is not Rome. Things are only rhyming because there is a natural human tendency to want something for nothing, even when it comes at the expense of others. What’s different in America is that Democrats and Progressives, perhaps for the first time in our history, are fiercely determined to exploit that tendency to get the power – by any means necessary – to permanently transform this country into something that’s unrecognizable. They’ve become a greater curse to America than all our diseases and criminals combined.
There must be a reckoning for what these reckless people have done to the country. And when that happens, great effort ought to be exerted to erase their memory, and these awful years, from American history.