The Boy Who Cried ‘Dictator!’

In the early days of 49 B.C., the city of Rome was a hotbed of corruption. Politics in the Senate had become increasingly vile and volatile, and Pompey, a once-beloved military hero who devolved into an ineffectual despot, was preparing to violently suppress the people of Rome in an effort to thwart the election of his ally-turned-enemy, the tactical genius Julius Caesar, as Pompey’s own successor. Fresh from significant military victories in Gaul, Caesar crossed the Alps on his way back to Rome. After Pompey and the Senate rejected his peace overtures, Caesar led a legion of hardened veterans in crossing the immortal Rubicon, a shallow river near modern-day San Marino that stood as the border between Rome and its territories to the north.

Fearing that Caesar would invade Rome, Pompey and many of Caesar’s enemies in the Senate fled, with Pompey seeking refuge in Greece. Their fears, however, were largely unfounded. Caesar camped outside Rome for weeks before leaving to pursue Pompey and reclaim the former consul’s lands for Rome. Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus but fled for Egypt, where Caesar pursued him. Upon learning of his victory and of the defeat of the pandering, paranoid, power-hungry Pompey, the people of Rome declared Caesar dictator. In terms of Roman law, a dictator was the head of all government, often appointed in order to resolve some crisis, with all other magistrates and military leaders subject to his command. The Roman people appointed him dictator four times before declaring him dictator perpetuum. The mission of his lifelong dictatorship was the rei publicae constituendae: the reconstituting of the republic.

Today, the term “dictator” has a similar technical definition but a wholly different connotation. It is no longer an honor nor a noble office, but a pejorative, an epithet often eschewed by the dictator himself but tossed about by both his oppressed people and his political opponents. Unfortunately, the word may have been bandied about too much. In the over 2,000 years since Caesar’s death, the term “dictator” has come to conjure a host of dark and disturbing images: Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in Germany, Joseph Stalin’s purges and gulags in Russia, Mao Zedong’s famines and mass executions in communist China, the reign of terror François Duvalier and the Tonton Macoute death squad wrought across Haiti, the killing fields of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Idi Amin’s mass arrests and public executions in Uganda are all horrific and bloody ghosts summoned by the word “dictator.” Or, at least, they were.

For decades, leftists and progressives have used terms like “dictator,” “fascist,” and “Nazi” to deride, smear, and cow their political opponents into submission — and, for decades, it worked. In 1968, when left-wing author Gore Vidal referred to National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr. as a “crypto-Nazi,” Buckley reacted viscerally, outraged at the prospect of being associated with Nazism. Over the past decade in particular, though, the words have lost their meaning, largely due to their gross overuse. The title of “dictator” is, in the Western world, typically reserved for despots, those who violently or aggressively consolidate political power, exercise it autocratically, and oppress or harm even their own people. But these days, the term is really only applied to Republican politicians who either exercise the constitutional authorities of their offices or deliver on policies demanded by the American people.

It is, perhaps, little surprise that President Donald Trump has been called a “dictator” after announcing his federal takeover of Washington, D.C. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) glibly referred to Trump as “an aspiring dictator,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) claimed that the president “is grabbing power like a dictator,” and D.C. Young Democrats chief Jamal Holtz called the effort to rid the city of crime “a racist power grab” and “dictator control.” When the president began enacting mass immigration raids and deportations upon returning to the White House in January, progressives once again churned out the dictator cliches, suggesting that following through on a widely-popular campaign promise around which the president centered almost the whole of his campaign, in addition to upholding existing law, is somehow autocratic overreach and a threat to democracy. Of course, this follows years of high-profile politicians, celebrities, and media outlets comparing Trump to Hitler and calling him and his supporters Nazis.

Suffice it to say that the words have all but lost their meaning — no more recoiling in the style of Buckley when words like “fascist” are thrown down like gauntlets. After all, what is a dictator? What is a fascist? What is a Nazi? If Americans are shown a Washington, D.C. free of crime, safe to wander, perhaps even restored and beautified, and told, “That’s a dictatorship,” then they may just decide that dictatorship is agreeable. If Americans see murderers, rapists, child predators, and drug dealers rounded up and returned to where they illegally came from, and told, “That’s the work of a dictator,” they may just decide that the world could do with a few more dictators.

If progressives continue the trend with terms like “fascism” and “Nazism,” the results may be terrifying. This danger is evinced clearly in certain media. In the Amazon Prime series “The Man in the High Castle,” in which the Axis powers won World War II, America has become a satellite state of Nazi Germany. Here, the streets of Manhattan are safe and clean and Schutzstaffel officers live in quiet, tidy suburbs raising large, well-behaved families. Likewise, the video game series “Wolfenstein” imagines the 1960s if the Allies had lost: the streets of small-town USA, adorned with red banners and bold swastikas, are clean and safe, with the only violence or crime being brought about by the player himself. To a certain extent, the same principle applies to the recent and controversial Sydney Sweeney ad campaign for American Eagle. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed star fixes up a vintage American truck, wipes her hands on her jeans, dons a denim jacket, and the Left howls out, “Nazism!”

The uncomfortable truth is that the Left has overused its favorite slurs — “dictator,” “fascist,” “Nazi” — so much and so broadly that the words have effectively been stripped of meaning. They no longer cow and daunt but are practically laughed off. The danger lies in the fact that the human mind and human soul crave meaning: these words cannot remain meaningless for long. Right now, the Left is pointing to every image of strength, patriotism, beauty, safety, and cleanliness — whether a crime-free D.C. in reality or a clean and safe neighborhood in an alternate reality, a president with the temerity to enact the will of the people who elected him or a blue-eyed actress in blue jeans fixing up a well-loved truck — and labeling it “dictatorship,” “fascism,” or “Nazism.” Progressives may just find, to their horror, that if they continue calling normal, good, and beautiful things “Nazism,” then normal people may just accept their terms.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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