JEFFERSON: Mr. Trump. I’ve read your speeches. Watched your conduct. Heard your calls for loyalty—not to the Constitution, but to yourself. Tell me plainly—do you believe in a government of laws or of men?
TRUMP (smirking): Look, Tom—can I call you Tom? Here’s the deal. The people love me. Nobody’s ever had support like I’ve got. We’re restoring order. Power was too spread out—too many weak people in the way. I’m just doing what works.
JEFFERSON: What works in the short term often destroys the long term. Power unchecked becomes tyranny. We saw it in kings. You are not crowned, Mr. Trump—you are elected. And you serve only by the consent of the governed.
TRUMP: Consent? I got 74 million votes. That’s consent. And when the system’s rigged, when the media lies, when judges don’t play fair—you better believe I’ll take control. The people want strength.
JEFFERSON: The people also wanted Caesar. And they lost their Republic. When fear and faction replace truth and principle, democracy becomes a performance—just a stage for the loudest voice. That is not strength. That is spectacle.
TRUMP (leaning forward): What’s wrong with spectacle? You think anyone remembers quiet leaders? No—they remember winners. We’re making America great again. Strong borders. Strong economy. Strong leadership.
JEFFERSON: Greatness without virtue is just empire. We declared independence to escape strongmen who mistook authority for righteousness. I wrote those words so no future ruler—elected or not—could forget the limits of power.
TRUMP: That was 250 years ago. Things are different now. We’ve got enemies everywhere—inside and out. You’ve got to fight fire with fire. The press is the enemy. Judges don’t listen. Congress? Useless. You think your little parchment still applies?
JEFFERSON (coldly): Yes. And if it no longer applies, then the Republic is already lost. You speak of enemies, but you divide your own countrymen. You praise autocrats. You mock reason. You stir up mobs and silence dissent. You do not preserve the Union—you fracture it.
TRUMP: I know loyalty. I know winning. You’re too idealistic. This isn’t the Age of Reason anymore—it’s the age of survival.
JEFFERSON: And in trading liberty for survival, you will have neither. I did not risk treason against a king to see my country fall under the rule of another—in a red tie instead of a crown. Power must always serve the people—not bend them to its will.
TRUMP (standing up): You had your time, Tom. You wrote your fancy words. I’m doing what has to be done.
JEFFERSON (softly, yet fiercely): And I wrote those words for moments exactly like this. When the flame of liberty flickers low… When truth is drowned out by volume… When one man seeks to become more than the people who gave him power… That’s when patriots must rise—not with muskets—but with memory. With courage. With principle. Because tyranny never knocks—it slips in through applause.
🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲🌿🇺🇲
[The room falls silent. A storm brews outside. One man believes he is saving the country by dominating it. The other knows it can only be saved by freeing it.] [unknown]
We hold these truths to be self-evident, - that all men are created equal, - that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, - that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, ...
It will take far more than words or memory or Patriots to get this Republic we've had back. Many lawsuits and injunctions have been brought against Trump in courts and most of them have been won against him but you see no slowing down of what he's intending to do in fact he's ratcheting up. He's firing anyone that disagrees and installing loyalists. The people back in Jefferson's day fought with muskets, rifles, hatchets... anything they could use as a weapon and anything they could get their hands on. It's going to be the same here whether the people like it or not. He has no intention of slowing down. People will be left with only two options. Succumb to dictatorship and authoritarianism, lose all your rights, healthcare, social services and have no recourse in the courts, more people will be put in concentration camps including white skinned and blue-eyed and or deported. Trump already has a company that is setting it up so his loyalists can spy on social medias and pick out people that are talking against him. Russia's jails are full of people that have spoken out against their government and one way or the other or they're dead.... or choice number two is go to war literally. Dictatorship I see will win over, people will fold over and over because no one has ever been to war solely within this country since the Civil War and quite frankly too many will be fearful of doing anything like that for fear of losing their families and everything else. The longer his dictatorship goes on the harder and more impossible it will be to change anything. The failing economy will just add more poverty. Right where a dictator wants them.. Afraid, broken, poor and stupid. I hope I won't be alive to see it. This may sound far-fetched but I bet it's far closer to the truth of things to come.
This is excellent. Trump, of course, is entirely ignorant of references to Ancient Rome (Sorry @Elessar) or anything else that could act as a warning. What is clever about this is the way the educated and prescient founder if what became the USA finds he cannot get through to myopic and egocentric Trump by reference to the Constitution to which he swore an oath.
That reminds me that abroad, the US is now called the Turd Reich.
Alas, one of the ruler having such an influence on that US Führer is, of all things, the one whose very own people have been wiped out by another Führer a little over 80 years ago.
