All right, I'm obviously supposed to be off this week, but obviously I needed to come back because I wanted to address Mr. President Donald Trump.

He is obviously arrived at a moment, and I just wanted to hopefully, hopefully these words will get to him.

So I'll just say that, dear Mr. President Trump.

I've always been a fan of Gladiator movies. I have watched them all countless times. Everybody who watches this podcast knows that. And when I consider what it is that I am so drawn to, like, is it the actors? Is it the storyline? And part, of course, who could deny, like, the performance of Russell Crow in the first film. But above all of that,

the characters, the script, there sits this sort of incontrovertible truth that I am absolutely

fascinated by, which is the fragility of empires, right? What is it ultimately that collapses

an empire? What makes an emperor weak or an emperor strong?

I think more to the heart of the matter, the question is,

what is it that makes a king or an emperor feel threatened initially?

The setup of every movie is always the same.

You have the wealthy elites, the politicians perched above

a coliseum, slaves fighting to their deaths beneath, all for their distinct entertainment, obviously.

And then comes the inevitable narrative flip. Suddenly the elites and their scribes and the senators,

they perceive a threat. And when does that happen?

That's actually not a rhetorical question, Mr. President. I know the answer. It is when a slave

begins to command the crowd every single time without fail. That's when the politicians

begin to feel worried. And what is a

particular interest to me about that moment is that the slaves on their end, they never desire

the seats of the politicians, right? They just want to have their most basic needs met in most

circumstances. They'd happily would serve some sort of structure of governance

forever if their basic needs could be met, but it's proven to be a historical impossibility, right?

Inevitably, we arrive at the moment of political extravagance, the fabled, let them eat cake moment.

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