Arc De Trumphe: The Dictators’ Dilemma
Why dictators find inspiration in Little Boney, the creator of industrialized suppression.
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At the end of his life, Napoleon believed he had been defeated by a British caricaturist named James Gillray, who eviscerated the French dictator by drawing him as a minuscule cuckolded megalomaniac dubbed Little Boney.
You have to ask yourself, why a man in Napoleon Bonaparte’s position could possibly think he could be toppled by a cartoonist.
Somewhere, his fragile psyche must have signaled to him that any ambitious man in the world could walk up and say, ‘I have as much right to that throne as you.’
Technically, he wasn’t to the manor born, and he knew it.
So what’s a self-appointed tyrant to do?
Exactly what Napoleon had done for decades: defeat your enemy before they even reach the field.
And how do you do that?
You have to find them first.
And to find them, Napoleon built the first modern secret service.
He took that template with him wherever he conquered — sourcing local traitors to spy on his behalf — a tradition that we most closely identify with the Stasi, but continues in many guises to this very day.
As the Arc De Triomphe rises impressively to the sky as a stone monument to conquest, I’m sure Trump is already sourcing particle board from China for his cheap imitation.
After all, Little Boney Spurs isn’t feeling so confident these days.
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I suspect Gillray’s cartoon was effective in smashing the foundation of Napoleon’s strongman veneer, because 1000s of others took similar, but seemingly unsuccessful sledge hammer blows at the foundation before Gillray