On 10th of January 49, BC, Julius Caesar led his army across the Rubicon River in Italy.

An event, he marked, according to the historian Suetonius, with three simple words,

yachta alia est. The die is cast. By which he meant that historical events would,

from then on, proceed according to fortune and fate. Whatever happened, conflict was

inevitable. The event could not be undone. Caesar had not only broken the law,

but the entire political order. The phrase, according to the Greek historian Plutarch,

did not originate with Caesar, and it didn't even originate in Rome. It went back centuries

earlier to align from the Greek playwright Menander. The idea, no doubt, went back centuries

earlier than Menander. Sometimes human affairs are relatively settled, orderly, predictable.

At other times, people upend everything, at which point nothing is predictable.

At those times, political prognostication ceases to be useful. Everything seems up to chance.

Last night, Democrats in Fulton County arrested the former president of the United States,

and the current leader of the opposition. They took his mugshot like a common criminal

in defiance of centuries of tradition and a universally agreed upon meaning of the law.

Anyone left, right, or center who tells you that he knows what happens now is either woefully

ignorant of history, which today is entirely plausible, or is lying, which is entirely plausible too.

What was predictable is that something like this would happen eventually.

America is not immune to history. America is not immune to human nature. Fundamental political

shifts have occurred since the dawn of civilization. No regime lasts forever. And the only certainty now

is that the die has been cast. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.

Welcome back to the show. We've got extremely astute commentary

from a guy who runs a group called, I'm actually, I don't think I'm allowed to say on this network

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