By Michael F. Duggan
It is a first principle of political survival for the ambitious, the audacious: “When you strike at a king, you must kill him.” The fact that this quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson means that even the most etherial of idealists acknowledge the primacy of power politics.
From the reprisals of the earliest tribal chieftains against their rivals to the brutal realism of the Romans and the Mob, from Machiavelli and the Tudors to the failed Valkyrie plot against Hitler, from The Godfather to the Gangs of New York, history, commentary, and art all tell us that plots against the powerful are a dangerous zero-sum game. As the story of Candaules in The Histories of Herodotus tells us, a successful coup may yield fruit, but there is nothing more lethal to would-be usurpers than a failed one.
Although coups are often the acts of ambitious lieutenants, I suspect the Prigozhin putsch was more the act of a loose cannon.
In many ways it is surprising that Prigozhin survived as long as he did. When the June 24 coup failed, I thought that it would be presumptuous of him to make Labor Day plans. Let us see how the U.S. justice system treats those charged with making a coup in this country.
*At this writing, the stories of the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash are uncorroborated.