The Great Man Theory of History, first proposed by Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle in 1840, suggests that all history can be seen as the result of the impact of “great men”. Carlyle stated: “the history of the world is but the biography of great men”. He viewed these great men as influential leaders, who due to their superior intellect, ambition, courage or leadership qualities had an oversized impact on the course of human events. He wrote: ”they were the modelers, patterns, and in a wide sense, the creators of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or attain.”
Many historians, and others (and I include myself here) took Carlyle’s theory with a grain of salt. Perhaps Carlyle was focused only on the likes of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Charlemagne, or even Napoleon Bonaparte, or in modern times..Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu. But many other great positive historic events must have been initiated by the common folk working in concert for some goal. Then too there were powerful women like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Queen Boadicea, some would add Margaret Thatcher.
But a major lacuna in Carlyle’s theory is the fact that history is also punctuated regularly by incompetent, insane, evil, aged, or simply stupid leaders who somehow gained a position of power and during their ascendency caused chaos, human hardship and other disastrous consequences. We can clearly see now after only two years of the Biden Administration that the Carlyle hypothesis’s needs some revision. Not that it is wrong all together. Indubitably there are those who impact the world around them in an oversized way. They are transformative ….but what Carlyle got wrong was that like Roman Emperors Caligula (37-41AD) and Nero (54-68AD) and second century AD Emperors Commodus and Caracalla these “modelers” and “creators” could just as well be horrible, disasters, which cause financial ruin, instability, wars, death, plagues and generalized decline and fall.
As a day to day observer of events in the USA in the last two plus years (2020-2023)..we are all witness to the kernel of truth in Carlyle’s theory. Individuals in positions of power can and do influence historic events. In fact Biden’s administration has in a matter of a scant two years managed to bring a nation to its knees socially, economically, and in relation to the threats of the world at large. But how did he do it?
President Biden’s foolish plan to undermine and weaken the nation’s fossil fuel industry led to a price spike of near universally used commodities— gasoline and fuel oil. Then he poured “gasoline” on the fire with a two trillion dollar spending spree generating a broad based inflationary spiral peaking at 9% and which still haunts us today at 300% above accepted levels. Inflation has forced the FED to raise interest rates, causing weakness of long term treasuries held by many of our local banks which has in turn led to unprecedented bank failures. His deadly and chaotic retreat from Afghanistan projected his uncertain leadership. This perceived weakness, abandonment of efforts at diplomacy and failed leadership drew us into a foreign policy conflict and military quagmire in Central Europe which he has no strategy for ending and his incremental escalation with advanced weapons systems which runs the risk of nuclear war. His sanctions polices against Russia has had little effect on its target nation but led the entire world into an economic downturn. The Biden fossil fuel polices led to global scarcity, which spread the inflationary spiral and threat of recession world wide. His disastrous foreign polices have forced two of our most powerful world competitors Russia and China to join in a dangerous threatening partnership. This alliance of competitors has threatened loss of reserved currency status for the US dollar.
His domestic policy on illegal immigration has been a catastrophic failure. His policies have in fact encouraged illegal immigration, and in effect he has become a partner with the human traffickers who are making millions of dollars on their business of escorting illegals to the US border where Biden’s agents take over and permit them to disappear into the national heartland. In our cities they are housed in hotels given cell phones and support not offered to our own homeless
As President Biden continues to divide the nation by race and gender (or self confusion about it) and those in his Administration push wokeism, diversity, equity and inclusion, the nation struggles with surges of illegal immigrants marching across our southern (and northern) borders, while domestic crime surges, inflation flares, banks fail, and dangerous foreign enemies become more aggressive.
Biden has become a dangerous existential plague on the nation and the world at large. History will rank him up there with the worst “‘Great’ Men of History”.
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