ABSTRACT
Caesarism breaks the rule of money and intellect and returns the world to war, primitivism and "formlessness." "Caesarism grows on the soil of Democracy"—particularly the emergence of "masses" equipped with the right to vote but always "an object for a subject"—yet "its roots thread deeply into the underground of blood tradition." The Western world is on the brink of Caesarism, the culmination of a long process of social evolution and biocyclical development in which American civilization has triumphed over European culture. Amaury de Riencourt offers two major reasons—"internal" and international—to account for the approaching American Caesarism, which he depicts as an organic accretion of power condensed in the office of the president. Julius Caesar and Caesarism have continued in America to be terms of disapprobation or alarm, serving to describe presidents—or aspirants to the presidency such as Ross Perot in 1992—who would eviscerate Congress or short-circuit the "deliberative democracy" of the American system.
