As GOP leaders get in line, the outlook for democracy looks grim—in Ukraine, and even in America.
In 2016, Republicans could profess some uncertainty about the kind of president Donald Trump would be. Maybe the office would change the man? Maybe the party elite could bend Trump to its will?
But in 2024, there’s no uncertainty. Trump’s party is signing up for the ride, knowing exactly what the ride is. Pro-Ukraine senators are working to elect a president who will cut off Ukraine, knowing that he will cut off Ukraine. Pro-NATO senators are working to elect a president who will wreck NATO, knowing that he will wreck NATO.
Many top Republicans have been hoping for a way out of their Trump dilemma. That’s why Nikki Haley has raised tens of millions of dollars and Ron DeSantis has raised hundreds of millions. It’s why, even now, more than half of the Republican senators have not endorsed a primary candidate. And that’s why so many conservatives get twitchy when told that the 2024 presidential race is already a binary choice between Trump and Joe Biden. It’s also why the lopsided nomination contest will continue its fictional progress for some while longer.
But the exits are blocked. The many criminal and civil legal processes against Trump were too slow to rescue his party from him. The thesis that Trump might be disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment awaits a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Republican contest will be over within weeks.
It’s probably 616 anyway.
I always heard that ‘666’ was code for the Romans, because DCLXVI uses all the Roman numerals
Not according to these scholars.
The Revd Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Palaeography at the University of Birmingham, said on Tuesday that the possibility that the sign of the Beast was 616, not 666, was considered by Irenaeus in the second century, but he rejected it.
Referring to the newly examined text he said: “This adds weight to those who believe that it is a reference to Caligula’s attempt to desecrate the Temple in Jerusalem, by having his statue erected there as part of the cult of emperor worship.
“There may be a reference to it in Mark [13.14], where he refers to the ‘the abomination of desolation’. But this was overlaid by the Neronian persecutions. People believed that you could get from ‘666’ to Nero because in Greek he is the emperor Neron Caesar. And 666 is one number less than the perfect 777.
“The text is quite legible to the naked eye. It was published in 1999, but it has taken people time to catch up,” he said. www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk
The article says it’s a possibility, not a proven fact.