What Trump actually said, in his opening remarks during the press conference, was as follows: “The United States and Italy are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years, to ancient Rome …”
Edit: Even after reading this quote twice, I can’t really understand what Trump wanted to say.
I think he’s talking about the influence of Roman ideas on western culture.
It doesn’t look like something that he wrote himself, and it does make sense. Wikipedia even has an article about it.
Trump says a lot of nonsense, but something isn’t nonsense just because Trump said it.
I think he meant culture and politics has been similar since the time of ancient Rome, maybe thinking the United States existed that long ago.
It did not.
To play the ultimate Devil’s Advocate, the Romans did leave a lasting cultural impact on Brittain. So in a way we have a cultural bloodline that is distantly connected to Rome.
The American system is a direct descendant of Enlightenment Classicism, which includes a respect for the Classical Republics. Athens, Rome, Thebes, etc.
American federal government and arguably as a result liberalism is quite literally an imitation and attempt at modernization of the Roman Republic, which is, among other things, why we adopted the eagle as a national symbol and have a fasces in the House of Representatives.
Isn’t it some white nationalist shit about real whites being descendent of Rome?
Edit: Even after reading this quote twice, I can’t really understand what Trump wanted to say.
Can anyone ever?
My take is that he sees himself as Julius Caesar reincarnate, who spelled the end of the Republic, and wants to be the first emperor of the USA. If you read about the last days of the Republic there are so many historically rhyming events that with the current state of America, a repeat of history seems almost inevitable. A spate of military wins means Rome becomes very rich very quickly, disband rival military power which leads to pirates and banditry, widespread extremes of wealth and poverty, politicians riling the public up into a frenzy with populist talking points, using corrupt judiciary system to punish their political opponents, plebs forcing themselves in on senate discussions, Krassus was a mega oligarch banker who bankrolled politicians and held debts as favours to call on, the Bona Dea scandal, Clodius being unceremoniously taken to court for sneaking into a women-only festival, who is betrayed by another political rival Sicero only to then be equitted (jury was bribed), and the subsequent crossing of the Rubicon by Caesar, leading to insurrection, more political assassinations, and the fall of the Republic.
I would say he is as spiteful and vengeful as Clodius (and feels wronged in the same way he did by the court cases against him), is as ambitious as Caesar, has Musk as his Krassus-figure backing him, craves attention and celebration of himself like Pompey, and thinks he is as important and catalytic to political change as the Gracchus brothers were.
Trump aspires to be as awful and as “great” as the conniving ruling class of ancient Rome, because he us just as morally bankrupt as many of them.
However all of these observations seem at odds with the way he presents himself - seemingly senile, lexicon of a five-year-old, and lacks any of the charisma and knack for timing that the great orators of the Senate had. In comparison, Trump as an isolated figure is but a skidmark compared to the intellectual brilliance of the Roman elite.
It’s diplomacy, what you don’t say is more important then what you do say.
He said what he wanted to say. He’s a fucking idiot that’s got progressive dementia.
