A Humble Epistle to His Most Imperial Majesty, Emperor Donald I, First of His Name of the Great Trump Dynasty, Supreme Commander of the Gulf of America, Grand Negotiator of Peace in the Americo-Pacific Dominions, Patron Saint of the Noble Republic of Amricistan, Rightful Heir to the Nobel Peace Prize (Currently Under Administrative Review), Ultimate Dealmaker of All Known Realms, Sovereign of Mar-a-Lago, Master of the Art of the Deal, Keeper of the Golden Escalator, and Most Devoted Consort to Her Imperial Grace, Queen Melania the Silent, Ultimate Protector of the Realm, Supreme Commanderess of Diplomatic Correspondence with the Muscovite Territories, Guardian of the Sacred MAGA Scriptures, and Bearer of a Thousand Other Titles Too Numerous to List in This Humble Correspondence (Et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum)…
Your Imperial Majesty,
I write to you not as a subject seeking favor, but as one who has studied the rise and fall of great empires throughout history. Having recently completed a comparative analysis of our current circumstances with those of the Western Roman Empire circa 450 CE, I feel compelled to share some observations that may prove… illuminating.
Salutations for great earning and debts
Your Excellency, I must congratulate you on achieving what many thought impossible – presiding over an empire where nearly half the population earns less than $47,960 annually while maintaining a national debt of $37 trillion. Emperor Diocletian (Jovius) would be impressed by such fiscal creativity. The Romans, in their primitive understanding of economics, merely debased their currency. Your Majesty’s great Empire has perfected the art of debasing an entire economy while the paper currency remains nominally strong.
Salutations for Democratic Participation
I note with particular admiration how Your Majesty has solved the age-old problem of democratic participation. Meaningful political engagement requires financial resources, which most citizens lack. By ensuring this Your Majesty has achieved what the Romans could only dream of. Now the Imperial capital has a democracy where only 63.9% bother to vote, and even fewer of the economically disadvantaged participate meaningfully. Brilliant efficiency, Your Majesty. Why have messy mass democracy when you can have selective democracy?
Salutations for Military Contractorships.
Your military innovations are equally noteworthy. Where Rome generously relied on barbarian mercenaries who eventually turned against them, we have perfected the system by using private contractors – 84% of whom aren’t even Americans! The genius is breathtaking: we spend half of our $14 trillion in defense expenditures on contractors who have no particular loyalty to the empire. The marvel is that Your Majesty is confident to get different results from what those Romans achieved. Such optimism is truly imperial in scope.
Education Policy
The educational policy legacy is perhaps most inspired. By making higher education financially inaccessible to the broader population, Imperial Capital successfully created an intellectual aristocracy while importing our CEOs, CFOs, and technical leadership from India. Why develop domestic human capital when you can outsource the very thinking that runs your empire? Rome’s senators would marvel at leaders who voluntarily made themselves dependent on foreign intellectual resources.
I particularly admire how imperial think tanks now draw exclusively from elite circles, ensuring that fresh ideas from diverse economic backgrounds never contaminate policy discussions. This guarantees that we continue applying the same solutions that created our current magnificent predicament. As they say, if you find yourself in a hole, the imperial response is clearly to dig deeper and faster.
Global Influence
Your Majesty, the global influence of Empire now trails China’s in 61 countries, our reputation has declined in 26 of 29 surveyed nations, and 54% of our most internationally knowledgeable citizens believe our influence is weakening. Yet we persist with the same strategies that achieved these remarkable results. Such consistency of purpose would make Emperor Marcus Aurelius cry with admiration.
Foreign Policy
Your Imperial Majesty’s diplomatic artistry with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an innovation which creators of artificial intelligence were in deep research and I humbly bow before Your Majesty for such supreme discovery.
After welcoming Modi to the White House with great fanfare, repeatedly declaring him a dear friend to anyone within earshot as also on live TV, you masterfully demonstrated imperial prerogative by imposing 50% tariffs on Indian goods and rekindling the Nixon-era romance with Pakistani military generals. Such exquisite timing of pivotal act. Just as India was gaining global stature through its COVID vaccine diplomacy and emerging as an indispensable talent pool, your majesty acted with precision.
But why acknowledge rising powers when you can nostalgically return to Cold War strategies that worked so brilliantly the first time? After all, consistency is overrated, and a true emperor is gloriously unencumbered by the pedestrian constraints of rationality or strategic coherence.
The inability of Modi to reach for phone when called by your majesty, during subsequent diplomatic encounters is surely a small price to pay for such bold policy pivots.
Checklist with Roman Empire
The parallels with Rome are so precise, one might think we were deliberately following their playbook. Political fragmentation? Check. Economic inequality creating civic disengagement? Check. Military dependence on foreign contractors? Check. Administrative corruption? Check. Declining global influence? Check. The systematic destruction of human capital development? A stroke of genius Rome never thought to attempt.
Your Imperial Majesty, I submit these observations not as mere appreciation of Your Imperial Majesty’s eternal wisdom, but as recognition of the historical achievement you are destined to over see and with Your Majesty’s name etched in history with man made diamonds. Never before has an empire so methodically replicated the conditions that led to another empire’s collapse while expecting different outcomes. The sheer audacity is breathtaking.
Perhaps, in your great imperial wisdom, you might graciously consider whether there are any more lessons from Rome’s experience that could accelerate our current trajectory, like benevolently shutting down swift banking on India and China. Though I suspect the intellectual resources needed to generate more constructive diplomatic approaches may have been… shall we say… systematically limited by previous policy choices and would be against the noble advice of wise senators like one who shares something with great innovator like Graham Bell.
I remain, as always, your respectfully concerned subject, marveling at the historical precision of our current course.
Most humbly yours,
A Student of Imperial History
P.S. – Should Your Majesty require advisors who understand the current situation, I hear there are many qualified candidates available in Bengaluru.