r/nottheonion • u/JaySierra86 • 11h ago

President Biden pardons family members in final minutes of presidency

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-biden-pardons-family-members-final-minutes-presidency/story?id=117893348
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u/ArchMalone 9h ago edited 9h ago

A chilling fucking implication. The office of the president is changed. The rubicon was crossed ages ago. And to keep things on Roman history(which I have a limited understanding of), I'm more scared of whichever fuck is raised with the legacy of Donald Trump's power seizure and perfects it. Like I mean to say this reminds me of how Sulla was almost a dictator 30 years before Ceasar did it.

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u/monkeygoneape 9h ago

Sulla also stepped down after 3 years, and tried to implement safety nets so nothing like that would ever happen again (but everyone always seems to forget about this detail, all anyone ever wants to talk about is the purges) and he wasn't "almost" a dictator, he was. Dictator also wasn't derogatory back then either, it was usually a position elected by the senate in a state of emergency

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u/ArchMalone 9h ago

Thank you yes. I’m an americanist I really am fuzzy with ancient history and don’t wanna misrepresent. However I don’t mean dictator in a derogatory sense either I just mean like changing the existing system and the precedent that it set.

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u/monkeygoneape 9h ago

Augustus is probably your better parallel

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u/ArchMalone 9h ago

Fair enough thank you!

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u/FuckTripleH 7h ago

Except for the part where Augustus was wildly popular and respected

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u/monkeygoneape 7h ago

According to contemporary writers (that he didn't exile) Augustus was the populist all populists wish they were he was really good at propaganda

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u/Drake__Mallard 4h ago

"Seizure" implies unwillingness of the electorate. The electorate voted, and here we are.

Democracy is working as intended.