It's tricky but translatable. He's saying that the government was vicious as horrible, but it worked for them because they where forceful. Then he maps it back

It's tricky but translatable. He's saying that the government was vicious as horrible, but it worked for them because they where forceful. Then he maps it back to the US, saying that we need to be forceful to be successful (presumably we won't be horrible and vicious, though) Strength is bad when evil people (THEY) use it but good when good people (US) use it. He's using the King Arthurian logic of "Might makes Right in this world, but WE shall use Might in the service of Right" and holy cow my required liberal arts elective is directly applicable to modern government policy.