Here’s a fascinating twelve minutes of a longer interview with historian Mike Duncan, “an American political history podcaster and author. Duncan grew up in Washington state and now lives with his wife and children in France, where he is researching and writing a book. A self-described ‘complete history geek’ grew from an interest in ancient civilizations as a child, with a particular affinity for Roman history. After not finding any Roman history podcasts in 2007, Duncan began The History of Rome. The podcast concluded in 2012. A year later he began Revolutions. Each season of the podcast focuses on one revolution. In 2017, Duncan wrote The Storm Before the Storm, which was well reviewed and appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list” (Wikipedia).

Based on his study of revolutions, Duncan finds about a dozen familiar preconditions to revolution now in place in the United States. About Trump, he says you have to look back to some of the worst Roman emperors of all time — like Caligula and Nero — to find comparable incompetence and craziness.