When Julius Caesar crossed the river Rubicon in Italy he changed our history. This river in northern Italy was the red line: no general could bring his army south of that river towards Rome which was a Republic. Caesar knew what he was doing. He had no choice.

If he stayed above the line with his army, he would lose; if he left his army and returned to Rome with his power, he would lose, and if he crossed the Rubicon he would come to Rome to become Emperor and Rome would lose. He crossed the Rubicon, became Emperor, changed Rome and the Senate rebelled and assassinated him.

And so Trump crossed the Rubicon and sealed his fate, and our fate as well. History always changes when the Rubicon is crossed.

Did Trump have to cross the Rubicon? Yes, I say. It was is destiny, his fate. Trump is a Shakespearian tragic figure whose strength is his downfall. A man who cannot escape his fate no matter how hard he tries. A man (everyman for that matter) whose characters shapes the water of history in which he swims.

The wisdom of emptiness. Because Trump never faced his own emptiness, he had to keep filling himself up with new forms, new hotels, new Trump products, new demonstrations of his power. Like Lucy’s Chocolate Factory, he had to keep producing the same chocolates faster and faster to keep ahead of the terror of his own emptiness. 

Trump’s strength was that he thrived in ambiguity and chaos by creating it. Trump did not bring law and order but chaos, and when the chaos caused ambivalence, he came in to restore confidence. But his confidence was hollow because it depended on destruction instead of creation.