Maggie's Farm

OneGuy: Well, sure if you can but remove them by any means necessary. What we are seeing is a new kind of war.

To be clear, you are advocating the assassination of anyone, including elected political leaders, who stand in the way of your dystopian vision? Just checking.

OneGuy: Imagine someone in Germany removing Hitler by whatever means necessary in the mid-1930s.

Imagine the Germans had never voted for Hitler. Imagine von Papen and the conservative establishment had never convinced themselves that they could harness Hitler's popularity and control him for their own purposes. Imagine instead a young artist in Vienna in 1910, desperately wanting to be taken seriously as a painter. He has set up his easel near the Academy of Fine Arts, working on a careful architectural drawing of the magnificent building.

A man and woman, immaculately dressed, approach him. They look like aristocrats. The man strokes his goatee as he studies the drawing. The woman smiles. They compliment the young artist on his talent and offer him a substantial sum in gold for the painting. After talking for some time, the man makes another offer: he will personally sponsor the young artist's admission to the Academy. The young artist accepts. He goes on to have a reasonably successful career as an artist.

You have probably never heard of him. His name was Adolf Hitler.

The man and woman leave Vienna and return to the twenty-second century.

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, drawn by an aspiring young artist, May 1910.

OneGuy: I can't wait to hear why you brought up Von Papen.

Because it's just as relevant as the other examples of what-ifs. What might result from your fever-dream is that social changes are unleashed which could be worse than the supposed problem. You can't save the Republic by seizing power to decide unto yourself. Keep in mind that Brutus is not remembered for saving the Roman Republic, but for plunging the final fatal knife into it.

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

In any case, you must know you are playing the part of Hitler, hating on "foreigners", blaming them for national troubles, treating them as an existential threat to Volksgenosse true-blood Americans, and using extra-legal means to eliminate those who don't share your point of view, including and specifically elected representatives.

More generally, it's a significant question in historical analysis whether the Great Man theory really applies. There's an argument to be made that historical forces were such that the result was inevitable. While that may overstating the case in the other direction, there is no doubt that historical forces feed from the bottom up, and that Great Leaders can be seen as riding the wave of these forces, no more in charge of the waves than a surfer is. Tolstoy makes a good argument to this effect in War and Peace (one of many reasons it's considered a masterpiece).

OneGuy: They are the Brutus changing long established governments.

Huh? Brutus was attempting to preserve the long-established Republic against the dictatorial Caesar. Murder—as you have advocated—was not an effective means to that end.