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Showing posts with label Cam Ogie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cam Ogie. Show all posts
Cam Ogie ✍ The Difference Is In The Spelling, And The Art Is In Turning Conquest Into Belonging.

One of the most striking features of modern political discourse is the willingness of certain societies to condemn historical injustices committed by others while remaining reluctant to confront the foundations of their own existence. Nowhere is this contradiction more apparent than in the relationship between sections of Ulster Unionism, American political culture, and their unwavering support for Israel.

Throughout history, settler societies have often presented themselves as pioneers, civilisers, or victims seeking security, while indigenous populations have frequently viewed the same processes as conquest, dispossession, and colonisation. At first glance, these may appear to be entirely separate historical experiences, differing significantly in time, context, and scale. The Plantation of Ulster was a seventeenth-century colonial project; European settlement of the Americas unfolded over several centuries; and Israeli settlement in Palestinian territories belongs to the modern era. It can be argued that they share common characteristics associated with settler colonialism. Beneath the differences lies a common thread: the establishment and consolidation of settler societies on lands already inhabited by indigenous peoples, followed by the creation of legal, political and cultural narratives designed to legitimise the outcome.

A recurring feature in all three cases is the arrival of a population supported, either directly or indirectly, by a powerful state. The Plantation of Ulster involved the confiscation of land from Gaelic Irish families and its redistribution to settlers from Britain. European settlement of the Americas involved the gradual displacement of indigenous nations through war, coercion, treaty violations, forced removals and, in many instances, outright massacres. Israeli settlement in Palestinian territories represents a modern manifestation of a similar process, whereby land is acquired, settlements expanded, and demographic realities altered under the protection of state power.

Central to each narrative is the question of land. Indigenous communities often viewed the land as theirs by inheritance, tradition, and continuous occupation. Settler communities, however, frequently relied upon legal frameworks created by the conquering authority to justify ownership. What one side viewed as lawful transfer or development, the other viewed as confiscation and theft. This divergence in understanding remains a source of conflict centuries later.

In each case, the use of force played a central role in establishing and maintaining the new political order. The Plantation was preceded by military campaigns that defeated Gaelic resistance and enabled land redistribution. European expansion across North America was accompanied by countless conflicts, forced removals and atrocities against indigenous populations, culminating in events such as the Wounded Knee Massacre. In Palestine, military occupation, settlement expansion, checkpoints, house demolitions, the destruction of indigenous societies and what some human rights organisations, legal scholars, and activists describe as state-sanctioned killings of Palestinian civilians have been presented as mechanisms through which settlement expansion and territorial control have been facilitated and protected. In all three cases, the presence of military power has been essential to establishing and maintaining a new political and demographic reality.

The similarities extend beyond land and violence. Settler societies frequently rely upon legal structures created by the dominant power to justify what indigenous populations experience as dispossession. What is conquest in one narrative becomes lawful administration in another. What is theft in one account becomes development in another. What is occupation in one perspective becomes security in another.

History demonstrates that legality and morality are not always the same thing. The response of the British government during the Great Famine illustrated how adherence to economic orthodoxy, property rights and colonial priorities contributed to immense and catastrophic human suffering while maintaining the existing social order. Whether viewed as neglect, ideological rigidity or deliberate policy, the episode remains a powerful example of how legal and political systems can be used to defend structures of power at the expense of indigenous populations. The confiscation of Irish land was legal under English law. The removal of Native Americans was frequently legal under American law. Segregation was legal. Colonial rule was legal. Apartheid was legal. Throughout history, legal systems have often reflected the interests of those who possessed power rather than the interests of those subjected to it.

This raises uncomfortable questions about modern support for Israel among sections of Unionism and American political culture. Such support is not simply rooted in shared democratic values, strategic alliances or security concerns. Rather, it reflects a deeper historical identification.

The Ulster planter and the Israeli settler occupy remarkably similar positions within their respective historical narratives. Both emerged from settlement projects supported by powerful states. Both established communities whose legitimacy is contested by populations who regard themselves as indigenous. Both reject the description of themselves as colonisers and instead present themselves as people exercising a legitimate right to exist in the land they inhabit.

Likewise, many within the United States see in Israel a reflection of their own historical experience. America was built through territorial expansion across lands already inhabited by indigenous peoples. That process involved warfare, broken treaties, forced displacement, cultural destruction and massacres. Yet over time the settler became the native in the national imagination, and the indigenous population became marginal to the dominant historical narrative.

Supporters of Israel reject such comparisons. They argue that Jewish historical ties to the land are ancient, that Israel emerged following centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust, and that Israeli security concerns are real and cannot be ignored. They further contend that comparisons with colonial projects oversimplify a complex conflict involving competing national claims and existential threats.

These arguments deserve consideration. Yet, security concerns and historical suffering do not exempt a state from moral scrutiny. Nor do they erase the experiences of those who have been displaced, occupied or subordinated. The existence of historical Jewish connections to the land does not negate Palestinian connections to the same land, just as the passage of time did not erase the memory of dispossession among Native Americans or the descendants of those affected by colonisation in Ireland.

Indeed, one of the defining features of settler societies is their ability to transform conquest into legitimacy through the passage of time. Once enough generations have passed, the descendants of settlers cease to see themselves as settlers at all. Their presence becomes normalised. Their ownership becomes unquestioned. Their version of history becomes common sense.

This process of historical normalisation helps explain why allegations against Israel are often received differently by those whose own societies were built through settlement. To acknowledge the possibility that Palestinians have experienced dispossession, ethnic cleansing or even genocide would require confronting difficult and uncomfortable questions about the treatment of Native Americans in the United States and the colonial origins of Unionist settlement in Ireland. This helps explain why allegations against Israel are often met not simply with scepticism, but with outright hostility: acceptance of those allegations would cast a shadow over foundational narratives upon which other settler societies have built their own legitimacy.

The result is a form of moral exceptionalism. Actions condemned elsewhere are justified when undertaken by an allied settler society. Civilian deaths become regrettable necessities. Land seizures become security measures. Occupation becomes self-defence. Allegations of war crimes, ethnic cleansing or genocide are dismissed not necessarily because the evidence has been examined and disproven, but because accepting such allegations would challenge foundational myths upon which other settler societies have built their own identities.

Perhaps the greatest power of settler colonialism is not its ability to seize land but its ability to rewrite memory. The indigenous population remembers dispossession. The settler remembers survival. The indigenous population remembers conquest. The settler remembers civilisation. The indigenous population remembers what was lost. The settler remembers what was built.

The conflict, therefore, is not merely over territory. It is over history itself.

Whether in Ireland, North America or Palestine, the central question remains the same: who has the authority to define the past, and whose version of that past becomes accepted as legitimate? The issue is not simply whether Israel's actions are justified or unjustified. It is whether settler societies are capable of recognising in others the very patterns of dispossession, domination and historical revisionism that shaped their own emergence. Until that question is confronted honestly, the struggle between indigenous memory and settler legitimacy will remain unresolved, shaping politics, identity and conflict long after the original acts of settlement have passed from living memory into history.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

Planter Or Settler?

Cam Ogie ✍ The attempted murder in North Belfast has understandably generated shock, anger and revulsion.

Such acts of violence deserve unequivocal condemnation regardless of who commits them or who the victim may be. However, the public reaction to the incident has also exposed uncomfortable questions about consistency, selective outrage and political convenience.

The issue is not whether violence in North Belfast should be condemned—it absolutely should. The issue is whether our moral standards are applied consistently. If the injury or death of innocent people is wrong, then it should be wrong regardless of nationality, religion, ethnicity or geography.

In the days preceding the attack, many of those Unionist/Loyalist voices now calling for unity and solidarity against violence had been participating in events and demonstrations at Scarva where support was expressed for Israel's military actions in Gaza. Following the North Belfast incident, some of these same political voices used extremely strong and condemnatory language to describe the attack and expressing outrage at what had occurred.

This response highlights a perceived inconsistency, pointing out that many of those expressing such outrage ignores the devastating humanitarian consequences of the conflict and the deaths of thousands of civilians in Gaza, including women and children. Whether one agrees with that criticism or not, there remains an obvious tension when individuals express profound outrage at violence close to home while appearing less concerned by suffering occurring elsewhere.

Adding further complexity to the public debate is the fact that authorities have stated that they have no evidence to treat the North Belfast incident as terrorism related. At the same time, local accounts have alleged that the individuals involved were known to one another and further claimed that the individuals were known locally as suffering from substance abuse - drug addicts. That both allegedly suffered from drug related psychosis and who had apparently fallen out over a dispute of ownership of drugs. It has also been noted that the area where the attack occurred is close to several designated temporary hostels, emergency accommodation sites and supported living complexes. While Kinnaird Avenue itself is general social housing, the broader North Belfast area directly surrounding it features a high concentration of specialised facilities designed to support individuals experiencing homelessness, substance addiction or complex social issues. While this fact alone proves nothing about the circumstances of the attack, it forms part of the wider context within which local speculation has developed. Nevertheless, if such accounts prove to be accurate, they would raise legitimate questions about the speed with which some commentators sought to frame the incident within wider political narratives before all of the facts were known.

The danger in such situations is that public discourse can become driven by emotion and assumption rather than evidence. When people immediately seek to fit events into pre-existing political arguments, there is a risk that the actual circumstances become secondary to the narrative people wish to promote.

Equally revealing is the way certain crimes capture public attention while others quickly disappear from public discussion. Violent attacks only become symbols when society chooses to make them symbols. Countless victims never become rallying points for political campaigns, media outrage or public demonstrations. This naturally raises questions about why some incidents dominate headlines while others fade into obscurity. For example, there was not the same level of public hysteria following the Manchester school stabbings, nor were there widespread demands for immigration checks, deportations or expulsions upon conviction. Whether one agrees with such demands in any particular case is beside the point; the contrast in public and political reactions raises legitimate questions about why similar acts of violence can generate such different responses.

It also raises uncomfortable questions about consistency. Had the circumstances been reversed, would the reaction have been the same? If the victim and perpetrator had been of different racial or ethnic backgrounds, would the same political figures, commentators and campaigners have responded with equal urgency and prominence? Would public debate have taken a different direction? Would figures such as Keir Starmer. Nigel Farage, or Gavin Robinson and others within Unionism, have devoted the same level of attention and condemnation to the incident? These questions cannot be answered with certainty, but their very existence reflects a wider concern that public outrage is not always applied consistently and may, at times, be influenced by the identities of those involved.

The North’s own history provides another uncomfortable comparison. During the Conflict, the actions of the Shankill Butchers remain among the most notorious examples of sectarian brutality. Their victims suffered horrific violence, torture and murder. Yet those crimes rarely feature in contemporary public discourse with the same intensity of outrage that accompanies modern incidents. While the passage of time undoubtedly plays a role, it remains legitimate to ask why some acts of violence become enduring symbols while others are gradually relegated to the background of public memory.

Likewise, many other serious crimes receive far less sustained public attention. Questions are often raised as to why some victims become the focus of widespread political and media discussion while others do not. The answer is rarely straightforward, but it is reasonable to ask whether factors such as political context, public sentiment and media framing influence the prominence given to particular incidents.

The danger of selective outrage is that it undermines credibility. When people condemn violence only when committed by their opponents, or only when the victims belong to a particular group, their outrage begins to look less like a defence of human dignity and more like political tribalism.

If society genuinely wishes to combat hatred, violence and division, then the standard must be universal. The victim's identity should not determine the strength of our condemnation. Nor should the perpetrator's political, religious or cultural background determine whether we speak out.

The challenge facing the North - as it has faced for generations—is not simply condemning violence when it shocks us. It is maintaining the same moral standard when doing so is uncomfortable, politically inconvenient or challenges our own assumptions. Anything less risks turning justice into a matter of preference rather than principle.

A mature society should be capable of condemning violence wherever it occurs, demanding facts before drawing conclusions, and applying the same moral standards to all people. Consistency, rather than convenience, is ultimately the true test of principle.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

When Outrage Depends On Who Holds The Knife

Cam Ogie ✍ Britain and the EU frequently portray Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping as symbols of authoritarianism, aggression and contempt for democratic values. 

There is substantial evidence supporting many criticisms directed at those leaders. Russia has imprisoned opposition figures, restricted independent journalism and invaded Ukraine in violation of international law. Russian teams were rapidly suspended from international sport following the invasion.

Yet the moral certainty projected by Britain and the EU begins to fracture when their own actions — and those of their allies — are judged by the same standards. The issue is not whether Putin, Xi or Trump deserve criticism. The issue is whether Britain and Europe apply their proclaimed principles consistently. Increasingly, the evidence suggests they do not.

The treatment of journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey exposed this contradiction within Britain itself. The two Northern Irish investigative journalists were arrested after producing No Stone Unturned, a documentary examining alleged collusion surrounding the Loughinisland massacre. Their homes and offices were raided by police. An Investigatory Powers Tribunal later ruled that police surveillance of the journalists had been unlawful.

Britain cannot convincingly condemn Russia or China for suppressing dissent while elements of its own state apparatus have targeted journalists investigating alleged state wrongdoing.

That perception of selective enforcement deepened further with the British government’s treatment of Palestine Action. In 2025, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper moved to proscribe the organisation under terrorism legislation, arguing that its activities justified designation as a terrorist group. Critics, including civil-liberties organisations and legal experts, warned that the move blurred the distinction between violent terrorism and political direct action.

In 2026, the UK High Court ruled that the proscription of Palestine Action had been unlawful and disproportionate, concluding that the government had failed to apply legal standards consistently and that the ban represented a serious interference with freedom of speech and assembly.

For critics, the ruling reinforced the perception that Britain increasingly applies the language of extremism and counterterrorism selectively and politically. Governments that condemn authoritarian states for suppressing dissent were themselves attempting to criminalise support for a domestic protest movement opposing British arms sales and Israeli military actions in Gaza. The contradiction was difficult to ignore. Britain condemned Russia and China for restricting political expression yet attempted to use some of the most severe powers available under British law against activists challenging Britain’s strategic relationship with Israel.

Britain’s moral authority is weakened further by its long resistance to accountability for historic abuses in Kenya and Northern Ireland. In Kenya, the British government spent decades resisting compensation claims relating to torture and abuse during the Mau Mau uprising before eventually settling with victims after previously undisclosed colonial files emerged.

In Northern Ireland, investigations and court rulings repeatedly identified evidence of collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and British security forces alongside obstruction and investigative failures. Critics argue that the British state continues to prioritise institutional protection over accountability. That criticism intensified with the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, which sought to restrict prosecutions and inquests linked to Troubles-era killings while offering conditional immunity to participants in the conflict. Parts of the legislation were later ruled incompatible with human-rights law.

The same selective morality is evident in Britain and Europe’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman. A declassified United States intelligence assessment concluded that the Crown Prince approved an operation to capture or kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Yet despite the global outrage surrounding Khashoggi’s murder, Britain and many European governments continued arms sales, defence cooperation and strategic partnerships with Saudi Arabia. The same governments that speak passionately about press freedom and human rights when condemning Russia or China adopted a far more restrained tone when dealing with an allied state central to Western security and economic interests. Critics argue that this demonstrated that geopolitical alliances and arms contracts outweighed proclaimed moral principles.

The same selective morality is evident in Britain and Europe’s relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government. Western leaders routinely condemn aggressive nationalism, inflammatory rhetoric and collective punishment when associated with rival powers, yet many continue to support Netanyahu’s government despite repeated warnings from human-rights organisations, UN experts and international courts regarding Israeli conduct in Gaza and the West Bank.

Members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have used extreme language about Palestinians that would provoke outrage if spoken by officials from Russia, Iran or China. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated in 2023 that the Palestinian town of Huwara should be “wiped out.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has repeatedly advocated hardline measures against Palestinians and was previously convicted in Israel for incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organisation.

Meanwhile, violence and displacement in the West Bank have intensified. The United Nations and major human-rights organisations have documented repeated killings of Palestinians, settler violence, expansion of settlements considered illegal under international law, and the demolition or seizure of Palestinian homes and land.

Critics argue that if another state engaged in comparable settlement expansion, population displacement and demographic engineering, Britain and the EU would likely describe it as annexation, ethnic persecution or even ethnic cleansing. When Myanmar carried out military operations against the Rohingya people involving village destruction, forced displacement and mass expulsions, Western governments condemned the actions as ethnic cleansing and imposed sanctions. When China was accused of mass detention, cultural repression and coercive assimilation policies against the Uyghurs, Britain, the EU and the United States described the actions as crimes against humanity, with some governments and legislatures referring to genocide.

Similar moral language was used regarding the violence in East Timor following the Indonesian occupation and the destruction carried out by pro-Indonesian militias after the 1999 independence referendum. Western governments condemned the killings, displacement and devastation, eventually supporting international intervention and accountability measures. Yet critics note that Britain and other Western states maintained diplomatic and military relations with Indonesia for years during the occupation, including periods of arms exports and defence cooperation despite longstanding allegations of abuses in East Timor.

Likewise, during the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, the large-scale killing of Tamil people civilians prompted allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity from the United Nations and human-rights organisations, leading Britain and European states to demand investigations and accountability from Sri Lanka. However, critics argue that Western governments largely maintained normal diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka after the war and that international pressure never approached the scale of sanctions and isolation imposed on states viewed as strategic adversaries.

Despite this, Britain has maintained diplomatic, military and economic cooperation with Israel. Senior Israeli figures continued to be welcomed in London even amid growing allegations of war crimes in Gaza. Critics pointed particularly to the reception given to Israeli President Isaac Herzog by Downing Street while Gaza was under sustained bombardment and humanitarian catastrophe deepened. Opponents argued that officials associated with policies under international investigation should have faced diplomatic isolation rather than ceremonial welcomes.

The genocide issue must be stated carefully. The International Court of Justice has not issued a final ruling determining that Israel has committed genocide. However, the Court found South Africa’s case plausible enough to impose provisional measures requiring Israel to prevent genocidal acts and improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza. Israel strongly denies genocide allegations and argues that its operations are acts of self-defence following the Hamas attacks of October 7.

Yet despite the severity of the allegations and mounting civilian casualties, the EU refused to suspend its Association Agreement with Israel despite calls from some member states and human-rights groups to review the agreement under its human-rights clauses. Economic and diplomatic ties remained largely intact.

Germany in particular maintained some of the strongest support for Israel throughout the conflict. Chancellor Olaf Scholz repeatedly reaffirmed that Israel’s security formed part of Germany’s “Staatsräson” — a core national responsibility rooted in the legacy of the Holocaust. Critics argue that Germany therefore applies a very different standard to Israel than it applies to Russia in Ukraine.

Britain’s position regarding Israel, Gaza and the broader confrontation involving Iran further illustrates this contradiction. British governments frequently portray themselves as restrained or neutral actors seeking de-escalation in the Middle East, yet Britain remains deeply integrated into American and Israeli military strategy in the region.

Britain allows the United States to operate from British-controlled bases such as RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and has historically provided logistical and operational support for American military actions in the Middle East. During the 2003 Iraq War — regarded by many legal scholars, diplomats and critics as illegal because of the absence of explicit UN Security Council authorisation — Britain presented itself as acting in defence of international security while simultaneously participating directly in regime-change warfare. The Chilcot Inquiry later heavily criticised the basis upon which Britain entered the Iraq War.

Critics argue that Britain continues the same pattern today regarding Israel and Iran: publicly presenting itself as cautious and balanced while privately enabling military operations through intelligence sharing, arms exports, logistical cooperation and diplomatic cover. Britain has continued approving military export licences to Israel and maintaining close security cooperation even while publicly calling for restraint and humanitarian protection.

This allows Britain to occupy two contradictory positions simultaneously. Domestically and diplomatically, it presents itself as a neutral actor seeking peace. In practice, however, it continues to facilitate and support one side militarily and strategically. Critics argue that neutrality becomes meaningless when one continues supplying intelligence, military components, diplomatic protection and access to strategic bases.

The contrast with Russia is impossible to ignore. Russia was subjected to sweeping sanctions, sporting exclusion, cultural boycotts and near-total diplomatic isolation within weeks of invading Ukraine. Israel, despite ongoing investigations, allegations of war crimes, mounting civilian casualties and immense destruction in Gaza, continues to receive diplomatic protection, military cooperation and preferential trade arrangements from many of the same governments presenting themselves as defenders of a rules-based international order.

When Russia bombs civilian areas, it is described as barbarism, collective punishment and possible war crimes. Western leaders rightly condemn attacks on civilian infrastructure and the deaths of non-combatants in Ukraine. Yet when Israel devastates Gaza, destroys civilian neighbourhoods and causes mass civilian casualties, many of those same leaders retreat into the language of “Israel’s right to defend itself.”

The inconsistency is not confined to Israel. Russia has repeatedly been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine. Yet when Ukrainian strikes hit civilian areas inside Russia — including attacks reported on apartment buildings, border towns or civilian infrastructure — Western reaction is often muted, qualified or framed as part of Ukraine’s legitimate military resistance rather than through the same moral and legal language applied to Russia. Critics argue that civilian deaths are either unacceptable in principle or they are not; their moral status should not depend solely upon which side carried out the strike or whether the government responsible is allied with the West.

That selective outrage creates the perception that international law is being applied politically rather than universally. Civilian suffering committed by adversaries is elevated into evidence of barbarism, while similar suffering caused by allies is softened through language, context and strategic justification.

This is the central hypocrisy of modern Western foreign policy. Britain and the EU do not consistently oppose repression, unlawful killings, collective punishment or attacks on civilians as universal principles. Rather, those principles are applied selectively depending upon whether the state committing the act is an ally or an adversary.

When China suppresses dissent, it is authoritarianism. When Britain obstructs investigations into abuses committed by its own forces in Northern Ireland or Kenya, it becomes “reconciliation” or “drawing a line under the past.”

When Putin uses nationalism and militarised rhetoric, he is condemned as dangerous. When members of Netanyahu’s cabinet use dehumanising language about Palestinians while settlements expand across occupied territory, Britain and Europe largely continue diplomatic business as usual.

When adversaries violate international law, sanctions and isolation quickly follow. When allies are accused of comparable violations, strategic interests, military alliances and trade relationships suddenly override moral principle.

None of this absolves Putin, Xi or Trump of criticism. But it does expose the fiction that Britain and the EU occupy a uniquely virtuous moral position. Their foreign policy, like that of every major power, is shaped less by universal principles than by strategic interests, alliances and selective morality.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

The Hypocrisy of Western Moral Superiority 🪶 The Hague for Thee, Handshakes for Me

Cam Ogie ✍What began in an earlier critique of Trump, Vance and the wider populist-nationalist movement as a warning about modern politics drifting toward the theatrics of imperial Rome now finds its mirror image in Keir Starmer’s Labour government. 

Rome’s decline was never driven by one faction or one personality alone. Some emperors and like Trump evoking Caesarist politics, governed through spectacle, grievance and personal cults; others through sterile managerialism, bureaucratic insulation and an increasingly desperate attachment to office. Both reflected the same deeper decay: a ruling class detached from the public mood and incapable of recognising when legitimacy had begun to collapse.

That is where Keir Starmer enters the Roman parallel. Starmer represents something colder but no less dangerous: the late-imperial ruler who mistakes control of the machine for consent of the people.

If Trump evokes the theatrical populism of emperors who thrived on mass emotion and political spectacle, Starmer increasingly resembles the later Caesars whose authority technically endured while public belief in them steadily evaporated. Rome did not fall solely because of flamboyant demagogues. It also declined under rulers who mistook administrative control for genuine consent, who governed through caution and messaging while the society beneath them became restless, distrustful and exhausted.

A comparison with Nero is therefore not about literal tyranny, but about the psychology of political decline. Nero began with considerable goodwill, promise, image and carefully managed moderation. He presented himself as measured, reforming and modernising — a reassuring figure after instability. Yet gradually image overtook substance. Nevertheless, his reign, like Trump’s, descended into vanity, denial, loyalist courtiers, public alienation and eventual collapse though Trump’s ultimate reckoning remains unrealised. Economic pressures mounted, public frustration deepened, elite confidence weakened, and the emperor increasingly retreated into performance, loyalists and carefully managed appearances. The regime became consumed not with renewal, but with preserving itself.

Critics argue that Starmer now risks embodying precisely that late-imperial instinct. They now argue that his government has entered a similar phase of decay: not dramatic despotism, but managerial exhaustion, moral compromise, endless U-turns and a desperate clinging to office. Rather than recognising growing public disillusionment, the leadership appears determined to rationalise every electoral warning as temporary turbulence. Poor local election results are dismissed as mid-term protest votes rather than acknowledged as evidence of a much broader rejection taking shape. Yet the local elections revealed something far more dangerous for an incumbent government: not simple frustration with individual policies, but a hardening public mood against the Labour leadership itself.

The U-turns matter because they reveal a government without a settled political soul. Pledges are made, abandoned, repackaged, denied and reversed. From welfare to tax, winter fuel, migration, digital ID, farming, public spending and other reversals too numerous to list, the impression is not of tactical flexibility but of a leadership constantly retreating from its own positions. Labour promised stability after Conservative chaos yet increasingly resembles the same exhausted politics it replaced.

The parallels with the recent Conservative collapse are striking and should have been a warning. The Conservatives cycled through prime ministers at extraordinary speed — from Boris Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak — in a desperate attempt to convince the electorate that changing the face at the top could somehow restore legitimacy to a government the public had already tired of. Each change sold as renewal, each really an attempt to preserve the party’s grip on power. But the public had already moved beyond blaming individuals. In the end, the electorate rejected not merely the individual leaders: they had rejected the whole exhaustive governing culture surrounding them. Labour now risks repeating that mistake. Removing Starmer alone may no longer be enough if the cabinet around him is equally implicated in the political failure.

Labour now risks repeating the same cycle in reverse. Starmer’s defenders insist that “the public do not want a leadership challenge” during difficult times domestically and internationally. Yet critics point to the local elections as evidence of precisely the opposite: the electorate is signalling deep dissatisfaction with the entire direction of the government. The claim that stability alone is virtuous begins to sound less like statesmanship and more like self-preservation.

The local and devolved election results have made that brutally clear. Labour suffered heavy losses across Britain, with reports citing voters “punishing Starmer’s Labour Party” and reporting more than 80 Labour lawmakers calling for him to go. The argument from Starmer’s defenders that “the public does not want a leadership challenge” during difficult times is therefore nonsense. The electorate has already delivered its challenge. The problem is that Starmer and those around him refuse to hear it. Indeed, critics increasingly argue that changing Starmer alone would no longer be enough. The problem, they contend, is not simply one man, but an entire political apparatus that rose and advanced under his leadership.

That refusal is sustained by a cabinet and inner circle whose political futures are inseparably tied to Starmer’s rise and survival. Critics argue that he has surrounded himself with sycophants, careerists and political dependants who increasingly confuse loyalty to the leader with loyalty to the country itself. Like the courtiers surrounding Nero and Rome’s declining emperors, they protect the illusion of authority because their own positions, ambitions and influence depend upon the survival of the existing order. This inevitably breeds caution, conformity and career preservation over honesty or principle, leaving ministers unwilling to challenge leadership failures even as public dissatisfaction deepens. The result is a culture of managed narratives, defensive messaging and political sycophancy in which maintaining power overtakes confronting reality, while repeated appeals for “stability” become less a defence of the nation and more a shield for political self-preservation.

This is where the charge against the cabinet deepens. Critics do not merely accuse Starmer of incompetence, but of moral complicity: of standing with Israel while Gaza faces devastation, mass death and an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice. The ICJ has ordered Israel to prevent acts under the Genocide Convention and ensure humanitarian assistance, while the case itself remains ongoing. For many on the left, Starmer’s government has not simply failed to oppose illegal war and mass killing; it has politically enabled them.

The proscription of Palestine Action under Yvette Cooper sharpened that sense of authoritarian drift. Cooper announced the move under the Terrorism Act 2000, making membership or support a criminal offence if passed by Parliament. The Guardian later reported that the ban followed damage to RAF Brize Norton aircraft and that the government defended it as targeting serious criminality, while opponents saw it as a dangerous attack on protest and solidarity with Palestine. To critics, this looked like the machinery of the state being used not to protect democracy, but to narrow it.

Starmer’s migration rhetoric also fed the sense that Labour had crossed a moral line. His “island of strangers” language was widely compared by critics to Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” politics, a comparison Starmer rejected. But even if one rejects a direct equivalence, the political effect was clear: a Labour prime minister borrowing the emotional grammar of the right while claiming to defend progressive government. Like Trump, he reaches for fear; unlike Trump, he dresses it in administrative respectability.

The blocking or sidelining of Andy Burnham adds another Roman layer. Burnham’s allies have warned against a rapid “coronation” of Wes Streeting and called for Labour’s NEC to ensure he can contest a seat and enter any leadership race. If Labour’s internal machinery is used to manage succession, exclude challengers or protect favoured candidates, then the party begins to resemble a court rather than a democratic movement.

Streeting’s role only adds to the sense of decay. Reports have repeatedly framed him as a possible successor, while also noting that he has not launched a formal challenge. Critics see this as the worst of both worlds: alleged disloyal manoeuvring without the courage of open confrontation. In Roman terms, it is the politics of the palace corridor — ambition without honour, intrigue without responsibility.

Rome repeatedly demonstrated how dangerous such insulated leadership circles could become. Later emperors surrounded themselves with administrators and loyalists who reinforced the illusion of stability long after legitimacy had begun to fracture. Silence was interpreted as loyalty. Obedience was mistaken for support. Yet underneath the surface, public confidence eroded until collapse accelerated with astonishing speed.

That is why the Nero comparison bites. Nero did not fall simply because he was unpopular. The striking feature of Nero’s downfall was not sudden catastrophe, but prolonged denial. The empire was visibly weakening long before he acknowledged the danger. Provincial revolts spread, elite support collapsed, the Praetorian Guard deserted him, and still the machinery of imperial authority attempted to preserve the illusion of permanence. By the end, Nero remained emperor in title while power had already disappeared in practice.

Critics argue that this is the true danger now confronting Labour. Governments often become most defensive precisely when they sense weakness approaching. They tighten internal discipline, attack dissent, repeat slogans about responsibility and stability, and insist there is no alternative leadership capable of governing. Yet history suggests that once a governing class begins arguing that it alone must remain in office “for the good of the nation,” it is often because it fears the electorate may already have reached a very different conclusion.

Unlike Trump, Starmer’s danger is not assassination or imperial violence; The Roman comparison is symbolic rather than literal. Britain is not imperial Rome and Starmer is not Nero in any direct historical sense. The danger is political death by denial. A leader clings on. A cabinet flatters him. Rivals whisper but do not strike. The party machine blocks alternatives. The public votes against the government, only to be told that now is not the time to question the leader. But the underlying lesson remains timeless: political systems decay when leaders begin confusing institutional control with genuine public consent. Once belief in a government begins to die, the structures around it may remain standing for a time, but legitimacy has already started to rot beneath the surface.

That is the warning increasingly levelled at Starmer and his cabinet — that they risk becoming a modern political court, clinging to office not because public enthusiasm remains strong, but because too many careers, ambitions and reputations are now bound to the survival of the existing regime. And history repeatedly shows that when ruling elites become more concerned with preserving themselves than renewing public trust, the end rarely arrives gradually. That is the same fatal arrogance that haunted Rome’s declining Caesars: the belief that holding office is the same as holding legitimacy. It is not. Once the people stop believing, power becomes theatre. And when a ruler is left performing authority to an audience that has already turned away, the end has usually begun.

Like Rome’s declining Caesars, they often discover too late that power can vanish long before those holding it are prepared to let it go.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

Beware The Ides Of May † Et Tu, Brute

Cam Ogie ✍ Son Of Sam 🪶 “ . . . The Dog Made Me D It . . . ” 🪶 Serial Killer David Berkowitz.

A serious, rigorous and coherent critique of the responses by Donald Trump, JD Vance, and commentators such as Pete Hegseth to Pope Leo XIV must begin by recognizing a fundamental asymmetry  and becomes significantly stronger when it grounds itself not only in contrast, but in evidence: this is not simply a disagreement of opinions, but a divergence between distinct intellectual frameworks. What emerges is not a clash of equal arguments, but a striking mismatch between a deeply developed theological tradition and a form of political rhetoric that often substitutes assertion for reasoning.

Pope Leo XIV’s authority is not merely symbolic—it is intellectual, historical, and rigorously earned. His academic formation alone reflects this: a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Villanova University (1977), followed by a Doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. This is complemented by his life as an Augustinian friar, formed within a tradition shaped by figures such as Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. Within this framework, questions of war, justice, and human dignity are not improvised—they are debated, refined, and constrained by centuries of moral reasoning, including principles like just war theory, proportionality, and the protection of noncombatants.

Set against this, the rhetoric of his critics reveals a fundamentally different mode of engagement.

Trump’s worldview, shaped in part by his economics education at the University of Pennsylvania, is rooted in transaction, dominance, and outcome. His language about war—calls for overwhelming force, threats of destruction—does not attempt to engage moral theology. Instead, it treats force as inherently self-justifying, collapsing complex ethical questions into demonstrations of strength.

Vance, despite his credentials from Ohio State University and Yale Law School, often approaches theology through a legal or ideological lens that does not fully translate. Legal reasoning is adversarial and strategic; theology is cumulative and truth oriented. The result is a critique that may sound rigorous but rarely grapples with the depth of the tradition it addresses.

It is with Hegseth, however, that the contrast becomes most explicit—because his rhetoric provides direct examples of how religion is being deployed. In a Pentagon prayer, he stated:

Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness … and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.

Elsewhere, he invoked divine support for military success:

“May the Lord grant… total victory over those who seek to harm them.”

He has also drawn directly on scripture in a martial context:

“Blessed be the Lord… who trains my hands for war.”

And framed military action within overtly religious language:

“Recognizing the providence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

These are not isolated remarks; they form a pattern in which religious language is used to sanction violence rather than interrogate it. At times, this rhetoric is further blended with cultural imagery—echoing tones and references reminiscent of Pulp Fiction—producing a fusion of faith, identity, and spectacle that bears little resemblance to disciplined theological discourse.

This is where the critique sharpens most effectively. The issue is not that such rhetoric is pathological. It is that it relies on assertion without examination. Appeals to “righteousness,” “victory,” or divine providence are presented as self-evident justifications, rather than claims requiring moral scrutiny.

At times, this structure of reasoning can sound—rhetorically, not literally—uncomfortably close to the logic of “the dog made me do it.” Not because the speakers are irrational, but because the argument rests on an external authority that is invoked rather than examined. The authority may be framed as divine mandate, national security/destiny, historical right or civilizational defence—but the effect is similar: justification is asserted, not argued.

The crucial difference, of course, is that these are not the actions of individuals detached from reality. They are deliberate, structured, and politically reinforced narratives. This makes them more serious, not less. The problem is not irrationality—it is rationalization. Violence is framed as necessary, righteous, even inevitable, within systems that can obscure the need for deeper ethical evaluation.

This stands in stark contrast to the tradition Pope Leo XIV represents. Catholic theology does not permit violence to justify itself. It demands that it be constrained, questioned, and morally accounted for. Where Hegseth’s language calls for “no mercy,” the Church’s tradition insists on limits. Where political rhetoric celebrates total victory, theology asks whether such victory can ever be morally legitimate.

What we are seeing, then, is not simply disagreement—it is a category mismatch. Trump, Vance, and Hegseth are not engaging the Pope within the framework of theology; they are addressing him as though he were a political actor operating within their own logic. In doing so, they flatten a complex moral tradition into something that can be overridden by rhetorical force.

In the end, the contrast is stark. On one side stands a figure formed by decades of disciplined study within a two-thousand-year-old intellectual tradition. On the other are critics whose engagement with that tradition is partial, instrumental, and at times dismissive. The result is not a meaningful theological debate, but a misalignment—one in which assertion replaces reasoning, and where, at moments, the justification for violence can sound as though it rests on an authority that need not explain itself.

The problem is not that U.S. and Israeli actions resemble the irrational violence of a serial killer; it is that they are far more troubling than that. They are rationalized, systematized, and justified through the language of law, security, and even morality. Where Berkowitz claimed a ‘demon dog’ told him to kill, states invoke national security, historical destiny, or divine sanction. The danger lies not in madness, but in the normalization of extreme violence under the cover of legitimacy.

And it is precisely in that gap—between reasoned moral argument and unexamined certainty—that the critique finds its full force.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

The Dog Made Me Do it

Cam Ogie ✍ The GAA can no longer credibly claim neutrality. 

What we are witnessing is not passive inaction, but an active choice to avoid moral accountability — a choice that increasingly places it at odds with the values of many of its own members.

At the centre of this contradiction is the organisation’s continued relationship with Allianz, maintained despite sustained opposition from players, supporters, and county boards. More troubling still is the deliberate suppression of debate: motions curtailed, dissent marginalised, protest dismissed, and visible expressions of solidarity — such as Palestinian flags — actively removed. This is not administrative caution. It is political management.

The GAA, an organisation historically rooted in resistance and cultural identity, is now deciding which forms of solidarity are acceptable — and, more importantly, which must be silenced. That alone exposes the illusion that sport can somehow exist outside politics. Politics is not absent here. It is being controlled.

But the deeper failure lies not only with leadership — it lies with the counties themselves.

There are those who have spoken out. And there are those who have remained silent.

That silence is not neutral. It is strategic. It allows those counties to benefit — competitively, financially, and institutionally — while others take the risk of dissent.

Yet even those who have spoken out now face a defining contradiction. If they walk onto the pitch in this year’s All-Ireland Championship as if nothing has changed, they do more than undermine their own position — they actively reinforce the system they claim to oppose.

Because participation provides legitimacy. And more critically, it provides cover.

It gives silent counties the justification they have been waiting for: "If it was truly unacceptable, they would refuse to play."

And just like that, the moral pressure disappears. The system stabilises. And those who said nothing are rewarded for saying nothing.

This dynamic is not unique to the GAA. It reflects a broader pattern in how institutions respond to injustice.

Consider FIFA and its handling of global conflict.

Russia was rapidly excluded from international football following the invasion of Ukraine — a decision framed as a clear moral stance. Yet no such consistency exists elsewhere. The United States continues to host the FIFA World Cup. Israel remains fully embedded in international competition despite widespread global condemnation of its actions in Gaza.

This inconsistency is not accidental. It reflects power. Sport does not transcend politics — it mirrors it. And participation within these systems is itself a political act, no matter how often players insist: “It’s only football.”

It is not. It is a choice to continue within a structure that selectively applies morality.

And this is where the comparison with Palestine Action becomes unavoidable.

Whatever one thinks of their methods, their strategy is clear: they do not issue statements and then carry on as normal. They act in ways that disrupt the systems they oppose. They target infrastructure, relationships, and economic links. They impose consequences.

They understand something fundamental that many within the GAA now appear unwilling to accept:

Power does not respond to words alone. It responds to disruption.

The GAA, by contrast, is attempting to contain dissent — to allow just enough expression to release pressure, but not enough to force change.

And those counties who have spoken out, but continue to participate unchanged, risk becoming part of that containment. They become the acceptable face of protest — vocal, visible, but ultimately ineffective.

All of this unfolds against a backdrop of escalating global violence.

The devastation in Gaza has been marked by mass civilian casualties, widespread destruction of infrastructure, and the collapse of basic living conditions. Hospitals, schools, and refugee areas have been repeatedly impacted. This is not abstract geopolitics — it is sustained human catastrophe.

At the same time, tensions involving Iran have escalated into direct confrontation, raising the risk of a wider regional war. The language used by political leaders in this context — often strategic, detached, and devoid of empathy — reveals how easily human suffering is reduced to calculation.

And consider the calibre of those shaping this reality. Donald Trump speaks in terms of dominance and resource interest. Benjamin Netanyahu continues military expansion under the language of necessity. Mohammed bin Salman — widely linked to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi — is welcomed and legitimised at the highest levels of global power. These are the actors defining the current moment.

And still, institutions like the GAA behave as though remaining “neutral” is a defensible position. It is not. Because neutrality, in this context, is not the absence of politics. It is alignment with the status quo.

This is why the responsibility now rests with those counties and players who have already spoken out. Because they are at a point where words are no longer enough.

To continue participating without consequence is to absorb moral outrage without producing change. It is to remain inside the system while claiming to challenge it.

But refusal — real, tangible refusal — changes the equation.

  • It removes legitimacy.
  • It forces confrontation.
  • It denies silent counties the cover they currently rely on.

There comes a point where protest must evolve or it becomes performance. The GAA has reached that point. And so have its counties. Because if those who claim to stand for something are not willing to act —then those who stood for nothing will continue to prevail.

Quietly. Comfortably. And justified — not by their own courage — but by the inaction of those who claimed to oppose them.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

A Message To Gaels Against Genocide 🪶 Play On Or Stand Up 🪶 The Moral Failure At The Heart Of The GAA

Cam Ogie ✍ History rarely repeats itself in exact form, but political patterns echo across centuries. 

It rarely collapses into dictatorship in a single dramatic instant. The Roman Republic did not disappear overnight, nor did it collapse in a single coup. It decayed gradually and it happens when institutions that once restrained power gradually surrender to men who claim that permanent war and national survival justify extraordinary authority. The Senate remained, elections continued and laws were still passed. Yet the system increasingly revolved around a single reality: loyalty to the ruler outweighed loyalty to institutions. The Senate continued to sit, debate, and vote long after it had ceased to restrain the men who dominated it. Julius Caesar and later Augustus did not abolish the Republic; they inherited it hollowed out — hollowed it out through a mixture of public fear, military prestige, patronage, and senatorial acquiescence — its institutions intact but subordinated to the will of the ruler.

In the twenty-first century, critics increasingly argue that something disturbingly similar is unfolding in modern geopolitics through the alliance between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Their partnership—built on militarised foreign policy, personalised leadership, hostility to international law and oversight, and the systematic marginalisation of institutions meant to restrain state violence through ‘dissent’ has fused these elements to resemble a modern form of Caesarism.

The rise of leaders such as Julius Caesar and later Augustus was not simply the story of ambitious men. It was the story of institutions surrendering their authority in the name of security, war, and stability.

Ancient Rome provides the clearest historical warning. The Roman Senate remained intact as the Republic decayed, eventually legitimising the rise of the Caesars. The forms of republican government survived, but the substance did not.

The comparison is not that the United States or Israel is “Rome again” in any literal sense. It is that both men have repeatedly practiced a recognizably Caesarist politics: rule through permanent emergency, elevation of personal loyalty over institutional independence, punishment of dissent, and contempt for restraining bodies at home and abroad when those bodies obstruct executive will. Their politics are not identical, but they rhyme in ways that should alarm anyone concerned with democratic government.

The consequences of which are being felt most profoundly in Palestine, but their implications extend across the international system.

The late Roman Republic became vulnerable to domination because crisis became the normal language of rule. External war, internal conspiracy, and civil conflict were used to justify extraordinary commands. Caesar’s ascent was inseparable from military glory and the argument that only exceptional leadership could secure Rome’s future. Augustus then perfected the method: he preserved republican language while monopolizing real authority, presenting personal predominance as the price of stability.

The Roman Caesars rose through war. Military success provided prestige, legitimacy, and the justification for extraordinary powers. Modern critics argue that Trump and Netanyahu have embraced a similar model: governance through permanent conflict.

Trump and Netanyahu have each governed through an analogous politics of emergency - a world of existential threats that require overwhelming force and permanent vigilance.

Trump has long framed foreign and domestic politics alike as existential struggles requiring personalized executive action. In his second term he moved quickly to centralize control over the executive branch, with a February 18, 2025, White House order declaring it the policy of the executive branch to ensure “Presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch,” including agencies previously structured to have a measure of independence.

Netanyahu has likewise governed through continual securitization. Since returning to office in late 2022, he formed what Reuters described as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, empowering coalition partners whose politics fused maximal military force with hostility to judicial and diplomatic restraint. Reuters reported that coalition agreements gave Itamar Ben-Gvir authority over police as national security minister and gave Bezalel Smotrich’s camp broad powers over West Bank planning and administration, deepening executive and ideological control over coercive state machinery.

War in this context becomes not only policy but political theatre: the leader as wartime commander, the nation in perpetual danger, and dissent cast as weakness.

A revealing parallel between the late Roman Republic and modern strongman politics lies in how dissent is treated once power begins concentrating around a dominant leader. During the rise of Julius Caesar and later Augustus, several senators resisted the erosion of republican authority. Cato the Younger among the most prominent defender of senatorial independence, vehemently opposed Caesar’s accumulation of power and the weakening of the Republic’s constitutional norms. Even the assassination of Caesar in 44 BCE, believing it the last remaining defence of the Republic, did not restore the Senate’s authority; instead, it triggered a civil war that ended with the rise of Augustus, who consolidated power while gradually neutralising remaining senatorial opposition through exile, forced political marginalisation, or absorption into his patronage network. The lesson of this period is stark: dissent within republican institutions became increasingly dangerous as the political system transformed into personal rule.

A modern comparison can be drawn to the political environments surrounding Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. While contemporary democracies obviously differ from ancient Rome, both leaders have been widely accused by opponents of treating dissent—especially from within their own political or security establishments—as disloyalty rather than legitimate disagreement. Trump has repeatedly attacked critics within government, the judiciary, and the military as corrupt or traitorous, while Netanyahu has removed or sidelined senior officials who publicly disagreed with his wartime strategy. In both cases, it is argued that the political climate increasingly pressures insiders to demonstrate loyalty to the leader rather than independent judgement. As in late republican Rome, institutions formally remain intact—but the political cost of dissent rises sharply as leadership becomes more personalised and conflict-driven.

One of the core features of Caesarist rule is patronage. Rome’s great men surrounded themselves with clients whose advancement depended on personal loyalty. As senatorial authority weakened, access to the ruler became more important than fidelity to impersonal institutions. Augustus, in particular, made senatorial careers dependent on his goodwill.

A comparable dynamic has developed within the Trump–Netanyahu political alliance.

Both leaders have elevated loyalists to key positions while marginalising or removing figures perceived as insufficiently supportive. Political appointments become instruments of control rather than neutral governance.

Trump’s recent appointments fit that pattern with unusual clarity. Reuters described Pam Bondi, nominated on November 21, 2024, and confirmed on February 4, 2025, as a Trump “loyalist” and “staunchest political ally” elevated to lead the Justice Department. Reuters likewise described Kash Patel, nominated on December 1, 2024, and confirmed on February 20, 2025, as a Trump “loyalist” and “loyal defender” placed atop the FBI. Those are not neutral bureaucratic placements. They are politically meaningful efforts to put personally trusted allies in command of institutions that, in a constitutional order, are supposed to retain independence from the ruler’s private interests.

Trump’s broader staffing and purge strategy reinforces the point. Reuters reported that on January 25, 2025, he fired 17 inspectors general in what critics called a late-night purge, raising alarm that independent watchdogs could be replaced by loyalists. Reuters also reported that he announced the removal of more than 1,000 Biden appointees and publicly named figures, including Mark Milley, in a performative assertion of personal power.

Netanyahu’s appointments show the same logic in a different institutional setting. He built his governing coalition by empowering ideologically hardline allies such as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Reuters also reported that his government pushed judicial changes that would hinder oversight of ministerial appointments and were partly designed to facilitate the political return of Aryeh Deri after Israel’s Supreme Court ordered Netanyahu to dismiss him because of his tax-fraud conviction. In other words, the governing project was not only to appoint allies, but to weaken the legal mechanisms that could disqualify or restrain them.

That is precisely the Roman pattern: institutions remain, but they are repurposed to ratify the ruler’s patronage network rather than discipline it. The Senate in Rome did not vanish; it became increasingly dependent. Congress and the Knesset have not vanished either. The danger is that they normalize executive encroachment by accepting the logic that the leader must control every strategically important office.

Caesarist politics cannot tolerate principled opposition for very long. Once the ruler’s person is equated with the state, dissent becomes betrayal. That was one of the pathologies of the late Republic: political rivalry escalated into civil enmity because opponents were no longer treated as legitimate competitors inside a shared constitutional order.

Trump’s treatment of dissent repeatedly follows that logic. Reuters reported that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth revoked retired General Mark Milley’s security clearance and protective detail in January 2025, after Milley had become one of Trump’s most prominent military critics. Reuters also reported the Pentagon removed Milley’s portrait and that Trump had suggested Milley could be executed for treason, language that collapses dissent into quasi-criminal betrayal. Reuters further reported on a broader “loyalty test” atmosphere in national security staffing, with outside Trump allies reportedly identifying officials as insufficiently loyal.

Netanyahu’s treatment of dissent within his own wartime cabinet offers a close analogue. Reuters reported that on November 5, 2024, Netanyahu fired Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, citing a “crisis of trust” after months of disagreement over the conduct of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Gallant had diverged from Netanyahu on key strategic and political questions, including war management and other matters touching accountability. Netanyahu replaced him with Israel Katz, described by Reuters as a close ally. That is classic strongman logic: when substantive disagreement emerges at the top, the problem is framed not as strategy but as trust, and the solution is replacement by a more reliable loyalist.

There is a Roman resonance here too. Augustus mastered the language of consensus while ensuring that meaningful dissent became politically costly. The institutions continued to speak, but only inside a field already structured by the ruler’s supremacy. That is how republics lose substance before they lose ceremony.

The Roman Caesars did not merely wage war abroad; military command was central to personal prestige and domestic legitimacy. Foreign policy became inseparable from internal regime construction. Caesar’s conquests in Gaul made him politically unassailable until the constitutional system could no longer contain the consequences.

Trump’s foreign policy style has consistently glorified coercion, unilateralism, and disdain for multilateral restraint. On February 4, 2025, Reuters reported that Trump signed orders tied to withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council and disengaging from UNRWA, while publicly saying the U.N. had to “get its act together.” In January 2026, Reuters further reported that his administration announced withdrawal from dozens of international organizations, including 31 U.N.-related entities, underscoring a broader attack on multilateral governance itself.

Netanyahu’s government has fused aggressive military conduct with contempt for outside restraint even more starkly. Reuters reported that the International Court of Justice on January 26, 2024, ordered Israel to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza; Reuters also reported that the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant on November 21, 2024, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel rejects the ICC’s jurisdiction and denies war crimes, but the point for comparison is institutional: external legal restraint has been met not with deference but with rejection and counterattack.

The Caesarist politics thrives when violence is narrated as necessity and accountability as sabotage. The ruler claims that survival requires force without meaningful external judgment. That is not a Roman detail; it is a recurring political form.

A republic in decline often preserves outward legality while attacking the institutions capable of imposing real limits. In Rome, the Senate gradually ceased to be an independent centre of power and became instead a stage on which executive dominance was clothed in constitutional language.

Trump’s hostility to international oversight is well documented. Reuters reported that in his second term he withdrew or disengaged from major U.N. bodies, including the Human Rights Council, and later moved to leave dozens more international organizations. Reuters also reported that he authorized sanctions aimed at ICC personnel over investigations involving the United States and Israel, a federal judge later blocked enforcement of that order on constitutional grounds. Reuters additionally reported sanctions on U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese after work tied to criticism of Israel’s conduct.

Netanyahu’s camp has acted similarly toward U.N. bodies and officials who publicly condemned Israeli conduct. Reuters reported that Israel barred U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres from entering the country in October 2024, declaring him persona non grata. Reuters also reported sustained Israeli attacks on UNRWA, including legislation to block its operations and rhetoric from Israeli officials dismissing humanitarian criticism as “activism” or worse. In January 2026 Reuters reported that Guterres warned he could refer Israel to the ICJ over actions against UNRWA and seized assets, while Israel dismissed the U.N. letter and again accused UNRWA of terrorism links.

This is one of the strongest parallels to the Roman story. Once a ruler treats oversight bodies as illegitimate whenever they constrain him, law becomes ornamental. The Senate under Augustus still existed; its function was increasingly to legitimate pre-made power. In modern terms, the more Congress, the Knesset, or international bodies are bypassed, intimidated, or converted into instruments of ratification, the more the constitutional shell remains while the republican substance drains away.

The most historically serious comparison is not Caesar to Trump or Augustus to Netanyahu as personalities. It is the relationship between the ruler and the institutions that choose accommodation over confrontation.

Rome’s Senate bears direct responsibility for its own eclipse. Augustus did not destroy senatorial prestige by brute force alone. He preserved the Senate, honoured it ceremonially, and used it. Although the Senate remained, real power rested with Augustus and senatorial careers depended on his goodwill. That is the anatomy of elite collaboration: institutions surrender substance in exchange for survival, status, and proximity.

That pattern is visible in both contemporary cases. In the United States, a Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Bondi and Patel despite widespread concern that each embodied personal loyalty to Trump at the head of law-enforcement institutions. In Israel, Netanyahu’s parliamentary coalition repeatedly backed judicial and executive changes that critics said would weaken oversight and increase political control over state institutions, including the judiciary and ministerial appointments.

This is how senates die: not always through abolition, but through consent. They become spectators to their own diminution, then participants in it.

Even though Rome was not a modern democracy and the U.S. and Israel are not ancient aristocratic republics, the Roman Republic did not fall because the Senate disappeared. It fell because the Senate remained while ceasing to matter.

That is why the comparison is so disturbing. Trump and Netanyahu each embody a politics in which war magnifies the leader, loyalists colonize institutions, dissent becomes disloyalty, and oversight bodies are smeared as enemies of the nation. Their aggression abroad and their contempt for restraint at home are not separate phenomena; they are part of the same governing logic.

The power exercised by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu does not exist in isolation. It is sustained by political institutions and allied governments that continue to provide diplomatic protection, military cooperation, and political legitimacy. Legislatures approve funding, governments supply weapons and intelligence, and powerful states shield allies from meaningful consequences in international forums. In doing so, they often justify their actions in the same language used by Rome’s senators: stability, security, and the necessity of standing behind allies in times of crisis.

The result is a system in which the institutions meant to restrain power instead help sustain it. International law is invoked selectively. Diplomatic institutions condemn violence yet struggle to stop it. Governments that publicly defend a rules-based order often make exceptions when their closest partners are involved. In this environment, accountability becomes increasingly fragile.

Rome shows how such moments can unfold. The Senate believed it was preserving order by accommodating rising imperial power. Instead, it gradually reduced itself to a ceremonial institution—one that endorsed decisions already made elsewhere. The republic survived in name, but its substance had drained away.

History’s darker lesson is that empires rarely emerge solely through conquest. More often they arise through consent—through institutions that slowly adapt themselves to the authority they once existed to restrain. The danger for the modern world is not only the actions of powerful leaders, but the willingness of political systems around them to accept those actions as the price of stability.

If Rome teaches anything, it is this: republics seldom recognise the moment when they stop being republics.

Caesarism always presents itself as rescue. It says that institutions are too slow, too weak, too compromised for the emergencies of the age. It asks the public to trust the strong man and asks the legislature to yield “temporarily.” Rome shows the potential of what comes next: the forms of the republic survive, but the republic itself becomes a memory.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

Return Of The Caesars 🪶 From Republic To Strongman Rule 🪶 Trump, Netanyahu, And The Caesarist Logic Of Executive Power

Cam Ogie ✍ The racist abuse directed at Vinícius Júnior was not an anomaly. It was an exposure.

Vinícius, the Brazilian forward for Real Madrid, has repeatedly been subjected to racist chanting in Spanish stadiums. Each time, the ritual is familiar: outrage, condemnation, symbolic sanctions, rebranded anti-racism campaigns. Yet the incidents recur.

The recurrence is the indictment. The issue is not one chant. It is the structure that makes such abuse foreseeable.

Europe’s Political Climate and the Stadium as Echo Chamber

Racism in football does not exist separately from European politics. Across Europe — particularly in the United Kingdom — immigration has been repeatedly weaponized in electoral discourse. When migrants are framed as threats to stability or cultural cohesion, such rhetoric shapes public culture.

Under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the British government has aligned itself politically with Israel’s military campaign in Gaza while calling for humanitarian protections and ceasefire arrangements. Critics describe Israel’s actions as genocidal; the UK government does not use that terminology. Regardless of terminology, political alignment influences domestic discourse — and football institutions operate within that climate.

When a staff member at Arsenal FC reportedly lost his role after publicly expressing pro-Palestinian views, questions arose about selective neutrality. By contrast, former player Andriy Shevchenko has publicly expressed support for Israel without comparable sanction. Whether legally identical or not, the perception of asymmetry reinforces the belief that football regulates political speech unevenly.

Selective neutrality is not neutrality. It is alignment disguised as principle.

Celtic, UEFA, and the Hierarchy of Acceptable Solidarity

Supporters of Celtic FC have repeatedly displayed Palestinian flags and banners during European fixtures. Under regulations enforced by UEFA, the club has faced fines for what are classified as “political” messages.

Yet Israel’s national team and affiliated clubs continue to compete in UEFA competitions and globally under FIFA. By contrast, Russia was swiftly suspended from international football competitions following its invasion of Ukraine.

The comparison is structural.

If solidarity with Palestinians is deemed impermissibly political while state participation during large-scale military devastation proceeds uninterrupted, a troubling asymmetry emerges.

That asymmetry risks creating an implicit hierarchy of whose suffering is institutionally actionable and whose is administratively containable.

Racism is not only individual hostility. It is structural differentiation in how human lives are valued. When one population’s suffering justifies sporting exclusion while another’s generates disciplinary action against those expressing solidarity, the message conveyed — intentionally or not — is that some lives disrupt global sport and others do not.

That is not consistent with the universalist anti-racism principles UEFA and FIFA publicly promote.

The GAA, Allianz, and the Global Hierarchy of Values

This pattern is not confined to international football governance.

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), an organization historically rooted in Irish cultural identity and anti-colonial heritage, has faced controversy over its continued sponsorship relationship with Allianz.

Critics have argued that Allianz’s global activities raise ethical concerns that appear to conflict with the GAA’s stated community-centred ethos. In response, the GAA has relied heavily on procedural language — emphasizing contractual obligations, corporate independence, and neutrality — rather than directly addressing whether the sponsorship relationship aligns with its declared moral framework.

The relevance to the racism critique is not incidental.

When institutions retreat into technical language to justify continued financial relationships despite moral challenge, they participate in a broader system where economic stability outweighs ethical consistency. The hierarchy becomes visible: financial relationships are preserved; moral discomfort is managed rhetorically.

This mirrors the logic seen in global football governance:
 
  • Anti-racism campaigns are emphatic.
  • Equality slogans are prominent.
  • Human dignity is marketed as universal.

Yet when those values collide with commercial interests or geopolitical alliances, institutions pivot to procedural defensiveness.

The effect is cumulative.

If sport repeatedly signals — through sponsorship, sanctions, and speech regulation — that certain moral concerns are negotiable while others trigger decisive action, it contributes to a global hierarchy of value.

And hierarchies of human value are the structural foundation upon which racism operates.

The GAA controversy therefore is not peripheral. It illustrates how even culturally rooted sporting bodies can become embedded in global systems where capital and political alignment quietly outrank proclaimed solidarity.

The Myth That Sport and Politics Are Separate

Whenever these contradictions surface, the familiar refrain appears: “Keep politics out of sport.”

This position is unsustainable.

  • Politics determines:
  • Tournament hosts.
  • Ownership structures.
  • Sponsorship relationships.
  • Sanctions regimes.
  • Which conflicts trigger bans.
  • Which conflicts are absorbed as background noise.

The awarding of the 2026 FIFA World Cup to the United States was not apolitical. It was a geopolitical decision shaped by commercial and diplomatic considerations.

The United States has a documented history of racial terror, including the campaigns of the Ku Klux Klan. Former President Donald Trump remains a polarizing political figure facing civil judgments and legal proceedings while retaining influence.

When political actors propose alternative diplomatic mechanisms (Board of Peace) that appear to sideline institutions such as the United Nations, questions of mandate and legitimacy arise. Football governance operates within the same geopolitical ecosystem.

To claim that sport should be separate from politics while federations ban nations selectively, clubs are state-owned (Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, Newcastle Utd, Girona FC) sponsorships are geopolitically embedded, and supporter solidarity is fined is not principled. It is naïve.

Sport is not outside politics. It is structured by it.

Infantino, Access, and Moral Flexibility

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has cultivated relationships across political systems, including leaders in Saudi Arabia and Western administrations alike.

If Russia’s invasion triggers exclusion but other devastating military campaigns do not, the principle appears flexible. If supporter banners are punished while state participation is protected, neutrality appears selective.

Selective neutrality is alignment.

The Structural Nature of Recurrence

If:
 
  • Political discourse normalizes racialized hierarchies,
  • Governments align with controversial military campaigns,
  • Clubs discipline political speech selectively,
  • Federations apply sanctions unevenly,
  • Sponsorship ethics yield to commercial necessity,
  • Institutions retreat into procedural language when values are tested,

then racist abuse in stadiums is not shocking. It is structurally predictable.

Each incident involving Vinícius is treated as a scandal. Yet governance structures remain intact. Fines are absorbed. Campaigns are refreshed. Optics are managed.

The system endures.

The Core Crisis

When José Mourinho invoked Eusébio in discussions about racism, it evoked a revered Black icon of European football history. But referencing historic greatness does not resolve contemporary systemic discrimination.

Celebrating past Black excellence while failing to protect present Black players risks transforming anti-racism into symbolism rather than substance.

The frustration surrounding racist incidents is not only about individual wrongdoing. It is about accumulated contradiction.

Football presents itself as universal and inclusive. Yet it operates within — and often reinforces — systems marked by selective moral application and hierarchies of value.

The stadium reflects society’s power structures. The tragedy is not merely that racist abuse happens. It is that it happens within a global sporting order that repeatedly signals — through action more than words — that some lives, some conflicts, and some solidarities matter more than others.

Until values are enforced consistently — across nations, across conflicts, across speech, across sponsorship — incidents like those faced by Vinícius will not feel exceptional. They will feel inevitable.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

The Predictable Scandal 🪶 Racism, Power, And The Structural Hypocrisy Of Modern Football

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