Historians have often enjoyed pointing to the role that luck plays in designating hereditary monarchs. If you got a kick out of I, Claudius, either in print or on PBS, you have already seen that role at its worst. Caligula and Nero were both evil, crazy, and incompetent; Tiberius and Claudius were at least moderately competent, though their personal habits were sometimes deplorable. Fast forward to 1776; George III, the British monarch of the time, was crazy and mostly incompetent, though not exactly evil. No doubt Rome, and Britain, had plenty of other better-qualified, sane people out there, but the choice of monarchs at the time was constrained by the rules of monarchical heredity. So were the personalities of some of the monarchs.
There are monarchs around these days too, although most of them have very little real power. Just as well, we think. Some of them are nice people; every now and then one of them may have a flash of intelligence; even if their more corrupt relatives ever succeed to the throne, they won’t be able to do much damage. But imagine one with the power that our constitution gives POTUS. And imagine an electorate that deliberately and knowingly chooses a George III or even a Caligula. Not just the familial luck of the draw, an outright electoral decision, of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Notice, by the way, that our modern dictators have their own familial oddities. They may have no relatives to speak of, like Hitler. They may kill off their families, like Stalin. Or they may create a dynasty, like the North Korean Kims. They may create a constitutional mechanism for selecting succeeding dictators, as Iran has with its religiously-appointed Supreme Leader.
And most democracies are not immune to informal dynasties, like the Argentinian Perons and the American Adamses, Roosevelts, Taylors, Kennedys, etc. Some of those have worked better than others. Most of the American dynasties have worked surprisingly well. Mostly that’s because, in choosing democratic dynasties, the popular electorate still gets the last word. And has usually exercised it pretty intelligently.
Oh dear readers, how I wish you were all history buffs! At least, if you get the chance, binge-watch I, Claudius. There you will find, among other things, how the fall of Caligula and Nero involved, among other factors, disgruntled relatives of women insulted or seduced by the emperor. History, as Marx points out, repeats itself, first as drama, and then as farce. Or, as Patrick Henry said, “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third…..may profit by their example!” Enjoy.