The Twitterstution of the United States

"The Death of Julius Caesar" (Gerome)

The Byzantine and labyrinthine machinations of Donald Trump’s White House are of course the subject of the January 6 hearings. On January 5, 2021 Trump famously Tweeted, “The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.” ("Trump pressures Pence to throw out election results--even though he can't," Politico 1/5/21). Neither the 12th amendment nor the Electoral Count Act of 1887 support this claim, though it’s a wonderful example of the proverbial use of both assertion and suggestion in the cybersphere. Several years ago BAM presented the Roman Tragedies, a compendium of Shakespearean obfuscation which included the murder of Julius Caesar in which audience members were invited to join the crowd on stage. There were strikingly similar theatrics  going on in The West Wing in the days preceding January 6th, with quite a few crowd scenes (though the audience was not invited) in which American democracy was on the verge of forever being subverted. "Et tu, Brute?"

read "Talk to Pigs in a Language They Understand" by Francis Levy, 

TheScreamingPope

and listen to "Just Like Romeo and Juliet" by The Reflections