Obama leaped from almost obscurity to the U.S. Presidency. And so may Harris, given Biden's age. I mean he is WAY past his "use by" date. And she may end up in the presidency without even running for it as Obama did. This got me contemplating the final centuries of the Roman Empire in the west and the argument that the speed of its decline was not fated or determined--nor "caused" by any one factor such as the rise of Christianity. Instead, one points to weak leaders, bad judgment, some very damaging events that were partly chance, devastating blows from treason, and expedients (like packing the Roman armies with mercenary Huns whose rose to top leadership). A dyed-in-the-wool postmodernist and far-leftist with socialist sympathies could become president just at the time when communist China's long-term plan of replacing America as world leader ("hegemon") is approaching its target date. When the anti-industrial revolution that is "catastrophic climate change" ideology is at its peak momentum. When years of virtually unconstrained inflation ("quantitative easing") has put a time-bomb under the U.S. economy, the dollar, and the world financial system. When the U.S.'s long-term world ally, Western Europe, is absorbing population and ideas and sympathies from Islam. The fall of the Roman Empire in the west was indescribably violent, devasting to economies, everywhere characterized by savage looting, rape, burning, and massacre. Roman influence, military power, and wealth had been massive and seemingly invincible. It survived crisis after crisis, blow after blow, but more than half the time by compromising its most essential principles. Few in positions of power thought like the giants who had built the Roman Republic. And few had their deeply principled commitment to the concept of Rome. It has been said: "Men did not love Rome because she was great; she became great because men loved her."

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