…as the World Socialist Website aptly notices. Meanwhile, Trump’s chief fascist theoretician, Stephen Miller, echoes Thucydides (but without noticing what happened to the Athenian empire): “We live in a world, in the real world…that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

This is true enough, but sometimes those with power benefit from at least the facade of a rule-governed international order: that, after all, is why the U.S. supported it after WWII (even as it breached the rules repeatedly itself). The collapse of even the pretense of that order will lead to wild nuclear proliferation, and eventually a united front against the U.S. by the rest of the world. The Athenian Empire, whose downfall Thucydides chronicled, did not have nuclear weapons, but nor did its opponents. What happened to Athens may also be the iron law of history when sick people with power, like Miller and Trump, get drunk on that power.