America just watched a live version of Julius Caesar last Saturday. But, thank God, instead of Caesar going down under a flurry of knives, former President Donald Trump literally dodged a bullet and rose up — and has ascended higher than ever before in his political career.  

Yes, the end result from that stage in Pennsylvania turned out differently than previously written. The protagonists, antagonists, and plot, however, tracked very closely to the Bard’s famous version. It’s truly quite amazing, this example of life (attempted assassination of a once, and probably future, POTUS) imitating art (the play) imitating life (the actual killing of the Roman leader Julius Caesar).

How does what unfolded over the last week, and indeed the years since Trump has been in the political arena, hearken back to Shakespeare’s most famous political play? Let me count the ways.

The Plot to Kill Caesar Resembles the One to Eliminate Trump

First is, of course, the overall plot. A band of conspirators plans to rid the body politic of a charismatic figure they deem a “tyrant” — but in this case, it’s a potential tyrant, not an actual, one. None of the schemers can name anything tyrannical Caesar has actually done — yet.

So in Act II, Scene I, Brutus muses, “For my part I know no personal cause to spurn at him/But for the general. He would be crowned.” Continuing, “since the quarrel will bear no color for the thing he is, fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented, would run to these and these extremities.”

Later, after the deed is done (Act III, Scenes 1 and 2), he adds that Caesar deserved death for his “ambition.”

We’ve heard the same sorts of claims, much less eloquently put, about Trump. The New York Times wrote just two days before he was shot that, if he regained office, the former president would be “dangerous in word, deed, and action.”

CNN came up with “seven reasons a second Trump term would be dangerous.” He’s “still a threat to democracy,” says Joe Biden. Trump has an “aggressive and ambitious policy agenda for a second term,” said NBC.

Trump, like Caesar, is condemned for alleged future evil, more so than for anything he’s done in the past.

Shakespeare’s Major Conspiracy Characters Have Current Analogs

Second, Biden has much in common with Brutus, starting with the fact that both are largely figureheads. In Rome, Cassius was really the individual driving the strategy against Caesar. In modern America, it’s former President Barack Obama, with a lot of help from his friends — especially former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The idea that Biden has been running his own administration has been roundly doubted for several years. Both Biden and Brutus think highly of themselves — the former probably even more so. And both prove inept when they are put in charge: Brutus because he’s so high-minded and impractical, Biden because he’s, well, senile. (Not that his judgment was that much better even when he was compos mentis.)

True, Brutus & Company do manage to stab Caesar to death — but are clueless about what to do afterward, thus being outmaneuvered by Marc Antony (who in turn is outfoxed by Octavian/Augustus).

The Late Roman Republic Looks a Lot Like the American One of Late

Third, the sociopolitical setting of late Republican Rome and (late Republican?) America are also similar. As Andrew Hadfield describes in his Barnes & Noble Shakespeare Series volume on this play, “the Rome we see represented … is a frightened, paranoid and vicious place in which individuals find that they can trust no one outside a select circle.”

Meanwhile, others “huddle in small groups nervously making grand plans while the people deliberate the achievements of Caesar.”

And, alas, “individuals” — like Thomas Matthew Crooks — “hide in corners planning violent acts of desperation” (like gaming platforms).

The general public, tired of being targeted by our own government’s law enforcement and intelligence organs, is right to be frightened and paranoid; it’s a wonder more haven’t resorted to viciousness. The overwhelmingly left-wing media certainly seems to spend most of its time “making grand plans” to oppose the leader many of the people actually love. They have acted, if not as conspirators themselves, as enablers of the Democrats’ constant attempts to demean and demonize Trump.

Finally, it’s a sad fact of life, both in ancient times and today, that desperate men will attempt to take matters into their own hands — and sometimes succeed. In this case, however, such a person did not.

When You Strike At a “King,” You’d Best Not Miss

To quote another famous writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “when you strike at a king, you must kill him.” Trump himself tweeted this, back in 2020, referencing his impeachment(s) and quoting a New York Times writer:

Did the Regime Try to Take Out Trump — Or Just Fail to Prevent Others from Doing So?

Did the Biden administration actually try to kill Donald Trump? I don’t think so. Despite what many are saying, I doubt the CIA helped Crooks.

But there are questions about the assassination attempt, and the lax security around it, that need answering. It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to ask, as Sean Davis did at The Federalist, whether “Joe Biden’s security regime deliberately and with malice aforethought created the conditions” that nearly got the former President of the United States killed.

Brutus “wishes, characteristically, that Caesar might die without being killed, the bloodless victim in a stately sacrifice” (John Palmer, Political and Comic Characters of Shakespeare). As he says in II, 1: “let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully.”

Likewise, Biden has demonized Trump at every turn but, to his credit, never called for violence to be used against his predecessor (although, if he’s “literally Hitler,” why wouldn’t you? Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer did that.).

The many similarities between Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and last weekend’s attempted assassination of Donald Trump stop with the ultimate outcome. Crooks’s bullets missed the president, unlike Brutus & Company’s blades (while sadly striking three innocent rallygoers, killing one).

Now the 45^th president lives to “fight, fight, fight” another day. And he can prove, as the 47^th, that his second term — far from being the tyranny the Democrats predict — will revitalize the American Republic as such.

Thanks be to God.

 

Timothy Furnish has a PhD from Ohio State in Islamic, World & African history. He’s been an Arabic interrogator in the 101st Airborne, a US Special Operations Command analyst, an author and professor. Furnish is the military/security affairs writer for The Stream.