We’ve seen this before. An obsessive builder, paranoid, impulsive, thirsting for adoration but universally despised, wanting to make his nation great again. What can be learned from Herod’s madness?
Yes, what a great history lesson! We forgot one other mad king: In 1867, "Mad King Ludwig II" began planning for his own kingdom, in which he could feel and act like a true king: his castles, among them the most "stately", was NEUSCHWANSTEIN. Of course he was, as opposed to Herod and Trump, a gentle king who loved Wagner operas and eventually lost his sovereignty after the armies of Bavaria and Austria lost the war against Prussia in 1866. Just good that Trump never saw Neuschwanstein, but maybe it would have fit better in the landscape than what his architects have designed for him?
Great history lesson, and a great reminder that there’s nothing new under the sun. Yes, that man will be remembered (I avoid saying his name), but for all the wrong reasons.
You've drawn a painful but apt parallel. Your reference to "Herod as obsessed with building ...his own version of Trump's triumphal arch" recalls for me the Caesarian anagram in that "triumphal" arch: "hail Trump." "Vanity of vanities ... and (and as Elvi notes below) there is nothing new under the sun."
Yes, what a great history lesson! We forgot one other mad king: In 1867, "Mad King Ludwig II" began planning for his own kingdom, in which he could feel and act like a true king: his castles, among them the most "stately", was NEUSCHWANSTEIN. Of course he was, as opposed to Herod and Trump, a gentle king who loved Wagner operas and eventually lost his sovereignty after the armies of Bavaria and Austria lost the war against Prussia in 1866. Just good that Trump never saw Neuschwanstein, but maybe it would have fit better in the landscape than what his architects have designed for him?
Great history lesson, and a great reminder that there’s nothing new under the sun. Yes, that man will be remembered (I avoid saying his name), but for all the wrong reasons.
You've drawn a painful but apt parallel. Your reference to "Herod as obsessed with building ...his own version of Trump's triumphal arch" recalls for me the Caesarian anagram in that "triumphal" arch: "hail Trump." "Vanity of vanities ... and (and as Elvi notes below) there is nothing new under the sun."
History repeats. I visited Masada, the Western Wall, and the White House!
I’ve seen all three as well. Who knew that they would all become archeological sites.