Skip to main content
Menu

Main navigation

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
    LOADING...
  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit
    LOADING...
  • Publications
    • Studies
    • Commentary
    • Books
    • Reviews and Journals
    • Public Filings
    LOADING...
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
    • Meet the Development Team

Issues

  • Constitution and Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Criminal Justice
    • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Economics
    • Banking and Finance
    • Monetary Policy
    • Regulation
    • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Politics and Society
    • Education
    • Government and Politics
    • Health Care
    • Poverty and Social Welfare
    • Technology and Privacy
  • International
    • Defense and Foreign Policy
    • Global Freedom
    • Immigration
    • Trade Policy
Live Now

Cato at Liberty


  • Blog Home
  • RSS

Email Signup

Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Topics
  • Banking and Finance
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Defense and Foreign Policy
  • Education
  • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Global Freedom
  • Government and Politics
  • Health Care
  • Immigration
  • Monetary Policy
  • Poverty and Social Welfare
  • Regulation
  • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Technology and Privacy
  • Trade Policy
Archives
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • Show More
April 29, 2016 2:47PM

Napoleon and Trump, Advancing on the Capital

By David Boaz

SHARE

It is said, perhaps not reliably, that the following headlines appeared in a Paris newspaper, perhaps Le Moniteur Universel, in 1815 as Napoleon escaped from exile on Elba and advanced through France:

March 9

THE ANTHROPOPHAGUS HAS QUITTED HIS DEN

March 10

THE CORSICAN OGRE HAS LANDED AT CAPE JUAN

March 11

THE TIGER HAS ARRIVED AT CAP

March 12

THE MONSTER SLEPT AT GRENOBLE

March 13

THE TYRANT HAS PASSED THOUGH LYONS

March 14

THE USURPER IS DIRECTING HIS STEPS TOWARDS DIJON

March 18

BONAPARTE IS ONLY SIXTY LEAGUES FROM THE CAPITAL

He has been fortunate enough to escape his pursuers

March 19

BONAPARTE IS ADVANCING WITH RAPID STEPS, BUT HE WILL NEVER ENTER PARIS

March 20

NAPOLEON WILL, TOMORROW, BE UNDER OUR RAMPARTS

March 21

THE EMPEROR IS AT FONTAINEBLEAU

March 22

HIS IMPERIAL AND ROYAL MAJESTY arrived yesterday evening at the Tuileries, amid the joyful acclamation of his devoted and faithful subjects

And I think about that story whenever I see articles like this one in this morning's Washington Post:


GOP elites are now resigned to Donald Trump as their nominee

Philip Rucker writes:

An aura of inevitability is now forming around the controversial mogul. Trump smothered his opponents in six straight primaries in the Northeast and vacuumed up more delegates than even the most generous predictions foresaw. He is gaining high-profile ­endorsements by the day — a legendary Indiana basketball coach Wednesday, two House committee chairmen Thursday.

Which is not exactly the rush of support that any normal frontrunner would be getting by this point. But the article is full of Republican leaders saying things like “People are realizing that he’s the likely nominee,” and "More and more people hope he wins that nomination on the first ballot because they do not want to see a convention that explodes into total chaos." Not exactly profiles in courage, these leaders. As Dan McLaughlin tweeted last night:

20 years from now - maybe 2 years from now - everyone in the GOP will want to say they were against Trump now.

But the stories are everywhere today: Republicans coming to accept their conquest by Trump. For a brief explanation of why they should not, I recommend Jay Cost's tweets as captured on Storify and my own contribution to a National Review symposium in January:

From a libertarian point of view — and I think serious conservatives and liberals would share this view—Trump’s greatest offenses against American tradition and our founding principles are his nativism and his promise of one-man rule.

Not since George Wallace has there been a presidential candidate who made racial and religious scapegoating so central to his campaign. Trump launched his campaign talking about Mexican rapists and has gone on to rant about mass deportation, bans on Muslim immigration, shutting down mosques, and building a wall around America. America is an exceptional nation in large part because we’ve aspired to rise above such prejudices and guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to everyone. Equally troubling is his idea of the presidency—his promise that he’s the guy, the man on a white horse, who can ride into Washington, fire the stupid people, hire the best people, and fix everything. He doesn’t talk about policy or working with Congress. He’s effectively vowing to be an American Mussolini, concentrating power in the Trump White House and governing by fiat. It’s a vision to make the last 16 years of executive abuse of power seem modest.

This is no brief for any other current presidential candidate. The major-party candidates seem as tragically un-libertarian to me as any group of candidates ever. But Trump seems dangerously uninformed, unmoored, erratic, threatening, and megalomaniacal in a way that transcends mere ideology.

Republicans like to praise the "greatest generation." Nobody's ever going to call the Republicans who rolled over for Donald Trump the greatest generation. Nor do they seem to be emulating their hero, Winston Churchill, who famously said:

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

As Dan McLaughlin suggests, Republicans should be asking themselves, What will I say when my son asks, What did you do when Donald Trump knocked on the Republican party's door, Daddy?

Related Tags
General, Government and Politics

Stay Connected to Cato

Sign up for the newsletter to receive periodic updates on Cato research, events, and publications.

View All Newsletters

1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001-5403
202-842-0200
Contact Us
Privacy

Footer 1

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
  • Podcasts

Footer 2

  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit

Footer 3

  • Publications
    • Books
    • Cato Journal
    • Regulation
    • Cato Policy Report
    • Cato Supreme Court Review
    • Cato’s Letter
    • Human Freedom Index
    • Economic Freedom of the World
    • Cato Handbook for Policymakers

Footer 4

  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
Also from Cato Institute:
Libertarianism.org
|
Humanprogress.org
|
Downsizinggovernment.org