Gore Vidal’s ‘Empire’

Empire is one of a series of seven novels written by Gore Vidal chronicling American history; set in the years 1898 to 1907, it is the fourth in the series chronologically (but fifth in terms of publication, 1987).  Reading this story of the dawn of the US overseas empire following the Spanish-American war, I perceived interesting parallels with today’s political scene of our now decadent empire.  Though I can certainly recommend Empire, this is not a review, here I only intend to illustrate Vidal’s sense of the historical moment through a few of select passages and make the comparison to current politics.

The key historical characters in the book are John Hay and Henry Adams. With their wives and Clarence King they made up The Five of Hearts; a circle of friends that created a literary and political salon across Lafayette Park from the White House.  Hay came from Illinois to Washington to be President Lincoln’s private secretary. During the period of the book he was the Secretary of State for President William McKinley; and after his assassination, he continued to serve in the same capacity for President Theodore Roosevelt. Adams, a member of

Certainly it was the view of Vidal and is of most of the contributors to LRC that the Republic has long been dead and our floundering empire abroad has created a bourgeoning police state at home. Relevance for today is the clear similarity between the Hearst candidacy and that of Donald Trump playing the populist billionaire. Furthermore, Lew Rockwell has noted a similar view regarding Trump as to what Hay feared in Hearst; that the wealthy demagogue could morph into a Caesarian dictator.

But Trump causes trouble for the elite few just as Hearst did in his day. Vidal imagines what Hearst said directly to Roosevelt in a private conversation regarding damaging letters that provided evidence of influence buying throughout government

“First, I’d say it makes no difference at all who sits in that chair of yours [the presidency]. The country is run by the trusts, as you like to remind us. They’ve bought everything and everyone, including you. They can’t buy me. I’m rich. So I’m free to do as I please, and you’re not. . . .”

There is the crux of the reason for Trump’s popularity; by approaching the politically incorrect immigration issue head on he gives the impression that because he is rich he cannot be bought.  However, in the end Hearst was denied the Democratic nomination through backroom deals at the party convention. For all his power and wealth, Hearst was usually denied in his several attempts at elective office (with the exception of a stint in the US House of Representatives).  We can be assured that in all the political backrooms in the country there are discussions and plots being hatched to block Trump. We might expect as Rockwell has supposed, that “the regime might even roll out one of its lone-nut gunmen” to solve the problem.