All empires rise and fall. But they all think of themselves as different. As better. As more advanced. In reality, it is a very old play with the same actors as every performance before it. And now, that play is in its final act.

Rome was eternal, or so it thought. And just decades before its complete collapse, it was riding high. There were signs of its fatal decay if you looked closely, but if you stood in its centre, looking out at the towering pillars, long stone streets and grand aqueducts, you would have been laughed at if you said it would soon be empty and in ruins.

But hubris is a poison which blinds. And imperial hubris is the very worst version of it. Because even as it blinds, it does not immediately kill the poisoned. And this allows that empire to cause a whole lot of misery and chaos for everyone in its wake as it writhes and flails and grasps at any last bit of power it can.

We should keep this in mind as we see one of the last emperors of the American Empire go mad right in front of our very eyes as his court of sycophants laugh hysterically.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026