Political Manipulation

All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put Humpty together again.

One of the good things about social media, is that politics, which was once confined as a whole to the country that you lived in, has now moved into the geopolitical arena. So it may surprise many Americans that in Europe, in my case England, we watch the story of President Trump unfold with as much interest as many Americans.

What I have noticed is that the "Trump story" is not confined to America, but that politics the world over is being challenged. The saying, "the inability to accept change is the cause of all unhappiness," in my opinion, has never been more true. However we must remember the lessons of history if this change is not to be yet another wolf dressed in lamb's clothing.

History tells us that when the people become disgruntled and disenfranchised, they blame their leaders, politicians, and sometimes anyone else who holds a different opinion to theirs. What follows is revolution, war, and the replacement, in the position of power and leader, of a more moderate candidate. This is at least what the fairytale version would have us believe.

The truth is that unless the fundamental political system that empowered the previous, and now debunked leader, is changed, then the new incoming leader will be just more of what was there before, and sometimes even worse. How many times have we seen people removed, both willingly and forcefully, from power, only to hear people a few years later saying, "oh life was so much safer and better when the previous leader was in power," but then hindsight is a marvelous thing when thrown like empty platitudes from ivory towers.

Julius Caesar was not the first and last dictator to rise to power, only to be betrayed and toppled by the very people who put him in power in the first place. However Caesar was also wise enough to understand the art of politics, and the art of war, and that while one was fought with weapons, the other was fought with words.

Of course Caesar was loved by the people as long as he fed them and afforded them a semblance of comfort. This all changed when he took the title Dictator, usually considered a temporary position, and made it a full time position. Starting to sound familiar? Consequently he alienated the senate, and they say,"the rest is history," as Brutus and Cassius instigated a brutal assassination. I cant but help wonder when Rome was eventually sacked and overrun by a Germanic Prince in 476 AD, if the people called the last Emperor Romulus Augustulas a tyrant, and said, "do you remember the good old days when Julius Caesar was our leader."

Fast forward to the 21st century and has anything really changed? Hark, is that Marie-Antoinette I hear saying, "let them eat cake," no, surely not?

You see this brings us back to my original point, unless we change the fundamental way in which underlying politics is dispensed, we are doomed to keep going around and around on the hamster wheel. They say that the definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. By this definition the whole world is mad.

So what next?

The first step in any problem is to first acknowledged you have a problem. Oh and boy do we have a problem. Though Julius Caesar let power go to his head, which is the case with all dictators, he was no fool. He was a brilliant general and tactician. It’s was Caesar who coined the phrase “divide and conquer,” because he knew that using force was not always the best way to beat your enemy.

As I said before history has a way of repeating itself, and for one moment I want you to suspend your belief in the hand that the magician wants you to look at, the one that has you believing that all this turmoil on the political stage is part of the act. Instead look at the hand of misdirection, the one the magician does not want you to look at. This hand, like Caesar, knows that to divide and conquer, especially with the use of social media, cyber security attacks from the comfort of your living room, is how the new battle is being fought and won. If you think this is a fantasy, or a conspiracy from the X-files, then I urge you to open your eyes, step back and see the bigger picture. Americans are divided like never before between the republican camp and the democratic camp. Never before have I seen such vitriol hate for a new president. To the point that people have even turned on each other for expressing their different opinions. Then we have “Brexit,” where once-friends have fallen out with each other, because some voted to leave the European Union and some decided to stay, and they cannot find middle ground. The tradition of British fair play, has taken a thrashing, the likes of which I have never seen before. These are only two examples of divide and conquer, but look closer, and the story is now repeating again and again worldwide.

I believe that this is no accident. So who is pulling the strings? Who, and what, does the magician really want? There is one way to find out, and that is observe any argument on a daily basis, and more often than not, you will find a common thread. They say it takes two to tango, two people to have an argument, but in fact this is wrong. It may take two to actually fight, after all you can’t punch yourself, but it actually takes three. The culprit will usually be the quiet one, you know that man or woman or even child, who tells one person that the other said this or that, that is intending to hurt you etc. then they step back and act blameless.

This is what I think is being played out, but in a much more global stage, and with far more dangerous consequences than the school play ground. Let me therefore ask you again, “Does the current political system work?” And “who has the most to gain, if we begin to turn on each other?"