100 Days of Resistance
The year was 1532. Europe was amidst the Renaissance. Italy was the cultural center of the World and Florence the center of the Renaissance.
It was in 1532 that Niccolo Machiavelli published his masterpiece The Prince.
Just prior to putting pen to paper and with the changing of the guard in Florence, from the Soderini to the Medici, Machiavelli had fallen out favor. He lost his governmental positions because of his past associations with the Soderini – the enemies of the Medici.
Medici loyalists jailed Machiavelli and tortured him using the ancient method of “strappado,” i.e. the tying of the wrists behind the back of the subject, then lifting him by his wrists until his shoulders dislocate and the subject writhes in unbearable pain.
Fortune, however, would show down on him in short order. Machiavelli regained his freedom as part of a goodwill effort by the Medici with the ascendance of Giovanni de’ Medici’s to the Papacy as Pope Leo X.
After he recovered from the shock of his treatment, the ever ambitious Machiavelli wanted to regain his once influential status. As part of that, Machiavelli wrote The Prince, dedicated to Medici family members, as ‘some token of my devotion’ to the Medici – knowing there was no other avenue back to power in his beloved Florence.
Within The Prince, we find these words:
“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”
With those words, all of the Trump Presidency comes into focus.
Keep in mind that half of the richest counties of the Country surround Washington DC. The federal government writes checks totaling over $6 trillion a year. Someone is cashing those checks. Government is big business to them.
Meanwhile, especially when it comes to tariffs, uncertainty becomes the enemy of policy.
So, as you listen to the cries and demands against change, keep in mind, what is new is actually quite old.
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