Commentary
The Roman historian Suetonius described Julius Caesar as timid and noncommittal as he initially approached the Rubicon River—a shallow and narrow waterway that, at the time, demarcated the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper—in January 49 B.C.E. In fact, the historian ultimately attributed Caesar’s decision to cross the waterway, precipitating a four-year civil war and ultimate Caesarian dictatorship, to the supernatural. Prior to crossing, again according to Suetonius, Caesar uttered the now-infamous phrase: “The die has been cast.”
While we cannot know for certain whether New York County, New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s catastrophic decision to successfully indict and arraign a former president of the United States was partially attributable to an intervening apparition, we can reasonably conclude that the actions of this past week have cast a most woeful die for the trajectory of our decadent, declining republic. The 34-count formal indictment of former President Donald Trump, laughably meritless on the legal merits and scandalously imprudent on the broader political judgment, represents a genie that cannot, and will not, ever be returned to its bottle….