« History does not repeat itself, it stutters, » Marx used to say. But in these troubled times, where mediocrity seems to have overtaken greatness, where facts fade before opinions, and politics is reduced to a carnival sideshow, this stuttering becomes a scream of alarm.
The series « Voices of Twilight » has a simple but imperative vocation: to summon the giants of yesterday to judge the dwarfs of today. Why them? Because death has freed them from fear, ambition, and flattery. Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and other tutelary spirits return here, not to haunt our nights, but to illuminate our fog. They cast their secular, ruthless, and lucid gaze upon our current leaders. What they see is not just pathetic; it is a warning. Through their resurrected words, we attempt to rediscover the meaning of the State, of Virtù, and of the Law, before night falls completely on our weary democracies.
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Letter from Niccolò Machiavelli to his friend Tobias — Sant’Andrea, Percusina, December 5, 2025.
My dear Tobias,
You ask me, in your last missive which reached me here, in my exile far from the clamor of the city, to cast my gaze as a former Florentine secretary upon the affairs of this new world, far away in the West. You wish to know if my old theories on power still hold true in the face of this spectacle. Alas, my friend, they hold only too well, but the picture is darker than anything I had imagined.
I have often been accused of being the master of cynicism, of teaching the art of cunning and necessary cruelty. But those who read me know that I worship only one thing: Virtù — that capacity of the leader to tame Fortune, to maintain the State, and to see the world as it is, not as one wishes it to be.
Today, I look to the West, to this new Rome, and I see no Virtù. I see only a tragic farce.
I see a man who claims to be Prince, but who is merely a histrion, a narcissistic jester who has turned the palace of power into a chaotic marketplace.
On the Emptiness of the Prince
A Prince must be feared, or loved, but he must never, ever be despised. Yet, this man inspires contempt in anyone possessing a grain of reason.
They say he speaks like the village idiot. He tirelessly repeats ten hollow phrases, like magic incantations intended to bewitch the rabble. « It’s not me, it’s the other guy, » « Biden, » « Witch hunt. » What poverty of mind! Cesare Borgia never apologized; he acted. This Donald Trump is a petulant child who believes that breaking the toy makes him the owner of the house. He wants to wipe the slate clean, you say? No, he simply wants to sell the rubble. He has no vision, no design for the State. His only horizon is the mirror in which he admires himself, and the vault where he piles his gold.
A Court of « Bumblers » and Profiteers
One judges the intelligence of a Prince by the quality of the men around him. Look at his entourage! It is not a war council; it is the back room of shady pawnbrokers.
There is this son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the face of an angel with the soul of a cash register, a semi-mafioso profiteer who mixes diplomacy and real estate like one mixes water and bad wine. And what of this Steve Witkoff? Appointed to diplomacy? It’s like entrusting fine gastronomy to a seller of rotten meatballs, or as you so aptly put it in your day, to that “McDonald’s” that the buffoon loves so much.
These people are not servants of the State; they are parasites. They ignore the laws, not out of revolutionary boldness, but out of crass stupidity. They think the State is a family business whose assets can be liquidated before declaring bankruptcy. What a fatal error! The State does not go bankrupt; it collapses on the heads of those who looted it.
The Puppet and the Master
But the most heartbreaking sight for a political observer is to see this cardboard Prince facing the true « Prince » of the East.
Vladimir Putin has read my books. He is cold, unshakeable. He possesses that dark Virtù of effective tyrants. He watches Trump agitate, gesticulate, and scream, and he barely smiles. He does not need to wage war; he only needs to pull the strings. Trump is not Russia’s ally; he is its toy.
This is the height of shame for a powerful nation: to be led by a man who believes himself a lion when he is merely another man’s monkey. He destroys alliances, insults friends, and bows before those who flatter him. He has forgotten the golden rule: the flatterer is the Prince’s deadliest enemy. And Trump, in his bottomless vanity, is the willing victim of every flattery.
The Judgment
In short, this man and his band of incompetent fools are proof that Fortuna is sometimes cruel: she gives power to those least capable of wielding it. They believe they lead the world, but they are only accelerating their own fall. In the fog of mediocrity they generate, they think themselves giants. History, however, will remember them only for the sound and fury of a grotesque intermission before the return, let us hope, of the reason of State.
For remember this, Tobias: let us not weep too much over the fate of this nation.
A people who tolerate such characters at their head, preferring the noisy spectacle of stupidity to the demands of freedom, is not a victim; it is an accomplice. It will have, in the end, only the tyrant that its own apathy deserves.
Your servant and friend, For remember this, Tobias: let us not weep too much over the fate of this nation.
Your servant and friend, Niccolò Machiavelli (© European-Security)
Dans la série : Les voix du crépuscule
- « Le bouffon, le tsar et les marchands du temple » : Lettre de Niccolò Machiavelli à son ami Tobias — (2025-1205).
- « The Jester, the Tsar, and the Merchants of the Temple » : A Letter from Niccolò Machiavelli to his friend Tobias — (2025-1205).
- « Der Narr, der Zar und die Händler im Tempel »: Ein Brief von Niccolò Machiavelli an seinen Freund Tobias — (2025-1205).
- Léonard de Vinci, Jules Verne et Nostradamus : « Les voix du crépuscule : Le tribunal des siècles » — (2025-1205).
- Leonardo da Vinci, Jules Verne and Nostradamus: « The Voices of Twilight: The Tribunal of Centuries » — (2025-1205).
- Leonardo da Vinci, Jules Verne and Nostradamus: « Stimmen der Dämmerung: Das Tribunal der Jahrhunderte » — (2025-1205).
- Charles de Gaulle : « Le Crépuscule des Nations : Mémoires d’un désastre annoncé (1) » — (2025-1202).
- Charles de Gaulle : « The Twilight of Vassals: No to the Brokers’ Yalta! (1) » — (2025-1202).
- Charles de Gaulle : « Die Dämmerung der Vasallen: Nein zum Jalta der Krämer! (1) » — (2025-1202).
- François de Vries (Jules Michelet) : La contagion des ténèbres : Exégèse d’une pathologie impériale (2) » — (2025-1130).
- François de Vries (Jules Michelet) : « The Contagion of Darkness: Exegesis of an Imperial Pathology (2) » — (2025-1130).
- François de Vries (Jules Michelet) : « Die Ansteckung der Finsternis: Exegese einer imperialen Pathologie (2) » — (2025-1130).
- Jules Michelet : « La danse des morts : Chronique de la grande nuit (1) Ou le sabbat des tyrans contre la résurrection des peuples » — (2025-1130).
- Jules Michelet : « The Dance of the Dead: Chronicle of the Great Night (1) Or The Sabbath of Tyrants Against the Resurrection of Peoples » — (2025-1130).
- Jules Michelet : « Der Totentanz: Chronik der großen Nacht (1) Oder der Hexensabbat der Tyrannen gegen die Auferstehung der Völker » — (2025-1130).
- François-René de Chateaubriand : « Vu de l’autre rive : le naufrage de l’Occident » — (2025-1128).
- François-René de Chateaubriand: « From the Other Shore: Contemplation on the Shipwreck of the West » — (2025-1128).
- François-René de Chateaubriand « Vom anderen Ufer: Betrachtung über den Untergang des Abendlandes » — (2025-1128).
Decryption: Beyond the Farce
The Privatization of the State as the Supreme Stage of Stupidity What Machiavelli points out with biting irony goes beyond the simple caricature of an incompetent Trump. The real danger our Florentine detects is the transformation of the Republic into a « Cosa Nostra. » By surrounding himself exclusively with family members (Kushner) and golf or business partners (Witkoff), Donald Trump is not just practicing nepotism: he is changing the very nature of power.
- The End of Politics: For Machiavelli, politics is a superior art. For the Trump clique, it is a transaction. Everything is for sale, everything can be bought, from military alliances to state secrets. Jared Kushner has no geopolitical vision, he has a « business plan. » Witkoff does not negotiate treaties, he seeks returns on investment. It is cash-register diplomacy.
- Systemic Vulnerability: By placing « bumblers » in key positions, Trump creates a void. Nature abhors a vacuum, but Putin loves it. The danger is not just that Trump is a « jester, » it is that he is prey. A man with no historical culture, no moral principles, and an obsession with his image is the ideal puppet for a KGB officer trained in psychological manipulation.
- Voluntary Amnesia: « It’s Biden’s fault » is not just a spoiled child’s excuse. It is a technique for destroying memory. By refusing responsibility (the essence of leadership), Trump invites chaos. For if the leader is responsible for nothing, then no one answers for anything. And in this vacuum of accountability, the law of the strongest—or the richest—becomes the only constitution.
