The Ides of March and the Left’s Figurative Assassination of the President

By Kitty Testa

A group calling itself The Ides of Trump has created a website and a Facebook page calling on Trump resistors to send postcards to the White House on March 15th. March 15th is more commonly known as the date that Julius Caesar uttered his last words, “Et tu Brute?” as his dearest friend drove a dagger into his back.

When referring to Caesar’s assassination, the day is called The Ides of March. The new reference, The Ides of Trump, clearly is intended to be associated with the assassination of the Roman emperor. The group’s web site states rather clearly that it is intended to be non-violent, but seeing the message juxtaposed with images of the daggered Roman coin issued by Caesar’s assassin, Brutus, in 42 BC, it’s a mixed message.

So while the group is not actively calling for violence—at least not real violence, it is calling on resistors all over the world to make their displeasure with the president known. The goal of the plan is to flood the White House with negativity to annoy President Trump.

So sharpen your wit, unsheathe your writing implements, and write from the heart. All of our issues — DAPL, women’s rights, racial discrimination, religious freedom, immigration, economic security, education, the environment, conflicts of interest, the existence of facts — can and should find common cause. That cause is to make it irrefutable that the president’s claim of wide support is a farce.

Postcard writers are encouraged to include the hashtag #TheIdesofTrump on their messages, and to send as many as possible.

When teaching my children about our republic, I have often said that we have been able preserve it only because we agree to accept the results of elections and that we do not assassinate the winners. Yes, The Ides of Trump is a figurative assassination, but it betrays just how deeply frustrated the Left is with the democratic process. I sometimes fear that the Left would do anything to undo the results of the election, including abandoning the democratic process entirely. Thus, I can’t help but wonder if this postcard campaign is indicative of a more sinister wish. Now I am not the thought police, and a violent thought not acted upon is no crime, but choosing the March 15^th for this postcard frenzy is deliberate, and the allusion to the murder of an emperor is no coincidence.

Yet Trump is no emperor. If he were, these people would be fearful of engaging in a postcard campaign. They would be fearful of participating in non-stop protests. In the United States, it doesn’t take any courage at all to complain about the president. Millions of Americans do it every day, and they always have, because they can. Likely tens of thousands—maybe millions—of people will send postcards to the White House, many signed, and with their return addresses on them. But would they do the same in protest of foreign leaders they condemn as tyrants—especially if they lived there?

There are not postcard campaigns against Putin, or Xi, or King Salman, or Kim Jung Un. Why? Because to engage in such activities in those countries would get you killed or thrown in prison. The mere fact that people are willing to mail insults to the president proves he is not the tyrant they claim him to be.

So the #resistor postcard party proves that Americans are free to speak their minds—even directly to the president.

I also wonder whether the Ides of Trump participants really think Trump is going to read any of these. What will result from the postcard bomb is a warehouse full of postcards with little daggers on them, all of which will need to be reviewed by the Secret Service to see if they contain actual threats. Trump won’t be annoyed, but the agents who have to go through all of these messages will most definitely be annoyed, as will the admin employees at the White House who have to deal with the explosion of mail.

And what happens if Trump supporters pull off their own postcard campaign and send off love letters and mountains of fan mail to the president? Imagine Trump holding a news conference in the Oval Office and having bags and bags of postcards marked with the #MAGA hashtag carried in by brave US Postal workers while Trump touts how much America loves him? Cringe worthy. And we’ll owe it all to The Ides of Trump.

What if this becomes a thing? What if the Trump supporters target George Soros for a postcard hurricane? Or Nancy Pelosi?

Are we ready for postcard wars? The US Postal Service is going to love this!