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Why does the author feel the need to draw two comparisons to Trump in the first two paragraphs? Or detracts from what otherwise would be an interesting piece.
by black6 6y ago
Why does the author feel the need to draw two comparisons to Trump in the first two paragraphs? Or detracts from what otherwise would be an interesting piece.
- twangist 6y agoThere are no mentions of Trump in the first two paragraphs. In the first, the author likens Suetonius, author of "The Twelve Caesars", to Michael Wolff, author of a book about a Trump WH scandal and intrigue. In the second, he references Mar-a-Lago. If these comparisons to the present "detract" from the "interest" of the article for you, rest assured that's a personal thing.
- FillardMillmore 6y agoI don't think it was simply a comparison to the present that irked the GP, I think it was the comparison between Trump, who, for all his faults, isn't quite at the level of a guy who had incestuous relations with his sisters, had people killed for amusement, and had a desire to make his horse a consul. It is mostly a harmless admission of the writer's bias - if this was written in the early '70s, there'd be comparisons to Camp David instead of Mar-a-Lago most likely. I don't particularly think it detracts from the piece.
- rsynnott 6y ago> isn't quite at the level of a guy who had incestuous relations with his sisters, had people killed for amusement, and had a desire to make his horse a consul. Note that the sisters and horse thing are probably not true; I don’t think either are taken particularly seriously by modern historians. Caligula certainly did do plenty of strange things, though.
- sologoub 6y agoI’m guessing the part you didn’t quote at the end of the paragraph: “ As reported by Suetonius, the Michael Wolff of ancient Rome, he never forgot a slight, slept only a few hours a night and married several times, lastly to a woman named Milonia.” Milonia is close to Melania. This doesn’t add anything useful to the article (what does it matter what his wife’s names were unless they were famous in their own right?), which is why I’m guessing the OP found this objectionable.
- africanboy 6y agoOf course she was famous, she was the empress of Rome! Milonia Caesonia and Caligula were in love before he took her as 4th (and final) wife, after ditching the previous one because she gave him no children and was labeled as infertile. Milonia gave Caligula his only daughter, Giulia Drusilla. Legends say she gave Caligula a love potion that made the emperor crazy for her and they conceived their daughter the first night of marriage, other say one month later. When Caligula was killed, few hours later Milonia was stabbed by a centurion and the poor Giulia Drusilla was crushed against a wall. She was only one year old.
- mongol 6y agoThe Julio-Claudian era of Roman history is so incredibly fascinating. The family ties are hard to keep track of though. But it helps to hear the stories told multiple times. Currently I am listening to the Emperors of Rome podcast. It is one if the best podcasts I have listened to, all categories included.
- mongol 6y agoAs I understand, the two main sources of the era were Suetonius and Tacitus, and between them Suetonius were more of the gossipy type in comparison. Thus, the comparison with Wolf seems quite well founded.
- akamaka 6y agoIt seems to be part of the New York Times style guidelines to put everything into context of presidential politics. For example, they published an article yesterday about the technical merits of hypersonic missiles, but instead of focusing on the details, it was full of phrases like “Biden will have to decide on the future of Trump’s program...” In reality, the president doesn’t get into the minutiae of weapon system design. I find the NYT’s style very irritating to read, since I have to spend too much time filtering out the rather meaningless political fluff to find the nuggets of useful information.
- xapata 6y agoI'd argue that much of modern military research and engineering is more politics than defense, so in that sense the political angle of the news story has more meat than the technical.
- rsynnott 6y agoThat seems perfectly reasonable; it’s very common for a change in administration to result in the killing off of various weapons programmes, especially those on the more exotic end of the spectrum. These are often political projects as much as military ones; the progenitor administration may be attached to them, but they’ll be reevaluated with a change of administration and if they’re not much good they may be cut.
- akamaka 6y agoBut the article doesn’t actually explain any of those politics! That’s the point, they just dropped in Biden’s name, despite the fact that he has no position on this issue, and despite it being largely in the hands of congress to decide the fate of the program’s funding. They took a newly published technical report and said “how can we connect this with the big news this week to make it sound more relevant”, just as they did with Caligula’s garden.
- Veen 6y agoIt’s even more irritating if you’re from the UK. The NYT seems to think of us as either champagne-swilling toffs in fancy dress or xenophobic troglodytes.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tamaharbor 6y agoI remember a time when you didn't even know who was President if you weren't paying attention.
- wavefunction 6y agoWhen was that, for you?
- icefrakker 6y agoYeah and that's how we ended up with an abomination like Trump. It's weird how proud you are of contributing to the decline of American civilization.
- pcdoodle 6y agoCould have forgotten if the media didn't shove it down our throats, No wars, Decent economy, well until the chyna thing happened.
- a_new_start1 6y agoWhat "Chyna" thing?
- trianglem 6y agoWhy not? To many he’s synonymous with shit so has entered common parlance in that way.
- LatteLazy 6y agoThat actually completely flew over my head. Politics aside, I think that's a clever little easter egg. Kudos for catching it!
- eplanit 6y agoIt's a symptom of the mental illness that is so widespread among "journalists". Mr. Lidz seems to be suffering from persistently invasive thoughts, caused by spending too much time in hatred and rage cycles.
- puranjay 6y agoTo be honest, you'd have some mental health issues too if you woke up every morning to some man screaming some random bs at the world for four years.
- glhaynes 6y agoBecause he’s a shitty dangerous clown who’s currently in power and calls to mind horrible rulers of the past? That’s my guess.
- brokenkebab 6y agoIt's not like there's a reasonable historical link between Caligula, and Trump, or the comparison serves any enlightening purpose. It's "we hate him that's why". Looks really unpleasant when you came looking for history as headline promises. Just to put things into perspective I live in a real unimaginary dictatorship, and still most people here can discuss history without artificially pulling current political news into it. That's just US media's special feature to push obsessions, anxiety, anger, and fear. My guess it's calculated to keep attention through emotion.
- cjohnson318 6y agoBecause it's extraordinary coincidence, calm down.