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Montesquieu on dictators and sexual predation
“Give me absolute control, over every living soul, and lie beside me baby — that’s an order.” L. Cohen, The Future.
NB. to football fans: this is adapted from Matt Sharpe’s 2023 book, The Other Enlightenment, a longer chapter on Persian Letters, informed (as here) by the classic work of political philosophy, The Spirit of the Laws. So its a bit more of a higher end read than some other contents here.
It was sparked by Rith Ben-Ghiat’s excellence (18) Predatory Strongmen II: Berlusconi and Trump, which came out this week. RB-G is one of the most clear-sighted assessors of what’s been afoot since 2015 in the US and elsewhere, I would contend.
The occasion of the text is the ‘shock’ that Mr Trump, a civilly adjudicated sexual offender who was then adjudicated to have defamed his victim, a prosecuted felon whose offence surrounded hiding his relationship with a porn actress, was not only friends with Mr Epstein for 15 years, but that he and his seconds (after years of hyperventilation on the Dems on the list) are now actively refusing transparency on Mr Epstein’s documents. It is even looking like this might be an exit point for many MAGAs, who are realising finally how sadly they have been abused by the career conman and convicted felon, whose…