Assassination and the Great Man Theory of History

 Posted Saturday, April 26th

Saturday was a glorious spring day but only when we got home in later afternoon did we learn of the 

spoiler: the attempted assassination at the Correspondents’ Dinner.

Assassination: 

That attempt to alter history and derail governance comes from acceptance of the Great Man theory of 

history: remove the Great Man and change the future. 

Has it ever worked? Did the assassination of Julius Caesar change the dissolution of the Republic, or 

only hurry it onward? It certainly did not restore the Republic which Caesar had already undermined. 

And Lincoln? The American Democratic-Republic form of governance only became stronger as 

Congress ruled the roost throughout the rest of the 19^th C., especially after the 13^th and 

14^th Constitutional Amendments were ratified.  

 

“Great Man” did not emerge again until Roosevelt, the Depression, and WWII. The Executive Branch, 

especially the Pentagon, became the center of policy and initiative. 

So, knock off the Great Man and you derail governance? Most often only the most deranged 

romantic believes strongly enough to become an assassin. Failed assassination strengthens the 

Great Man. Successful assassination most often puts the system into the hands of a new, would-be 

Great Man.  

 

Much as I want Trump gone, assassination is worse than he, an aberration, a lazy man’s answer. We 

need to do the hard intellectual work of understanding process, cause and the forces bending our future. 

We must reject the Great Man theory of history. It is a simpleton’s myth.

 

The simpleton now in the Oval Office must be removed but only through a Democratic-Republican 

process.