Jeremy's Editorial

Finding the least worst candidate to vote for is difficult, but I am going to vote for Cassius, mostly because I cannot take a trip in a TARDIS to a better place and age. Analysis of each of the three candidates follows below.

Antony: The representatives fail to address that he is a demagogue to the worst degree. Instead, the Media Relations representative used borderline-propaganda appeals of Nomos to make people think that Antony is the only true Roman whilst throwing dirt on the other leaders. They failed to sufficiently defend Antony for this quote: ‘Mischief, thou art afoot, // take thou what course thou wilt [to Rome]!’ and a similar monologue that he gave when Caesar died. They also failed to adequately address the chaos that Antony’s demagogic funeral speech - which was carefully crafted to create the most violent reaction from people - caused. They also failed to acknowledge that in the scene immediately after Antony wished for Rome to burn and ordered a servant to bring him the next man to prop up as leader to further Antony’s goals, a man was brutally murdered just because his name was that of one of the conspirators, Cinna. In addition, they did not address that either Antony is not very perceptive of threats or he is willing to sacrifice the people’s favourite leader for power; either he did not think that Cassius was a threat to Caesar, or he wanted Caesar to die so he could seize power. Either way, Antony’s overall behaviour is not that of a leader who loves his country and is a second coming of Caesar, it is that of a power-hungry demagogue who is a danger to Rome.

            Brutus: The representatives failed to address that Brutus is logically challenged, the biggest reason why he should not be elected. Instead, the representatives used borderline-propaganda appeals to patriotism (as Brutus did in his speech), pathos, and a distracting focus on perception to convince people to vote for Brutus. Brutus shows his logical impairment the most strongly at the beginning of Act II and onward. At the beginning of Act II, he says that Caesar should be killed because he could do some bad things because power could get to his head. That that uncertainty had such weight in Brutus’ mind that it was good enough proof to kill Caesar shows Brutus' inability to think things through properly. His reasoning after killing Caesar leaves much to be desired too. After brief discussion, Brutus basically said ‘Killing Caesar is the best thing we could do for him because now he does not need to worry about death. Now we need to convince the people that we are the good guys even though we killed their favourite leader. So, we should proclaim that we have ushered in an era of peace, freedom, and prosperity by getting our daggers and arms soaked in blood, wave said daggers above our heads while we are surrounded by fans of Caesar, and cry our message out to the masses like a bunch of mad men.’ It should be noted that Cassius thought that this was a good idea too. Brutus also thought that it would be a great idea to let Caesar’s right-hand man have the last say at his funeral. This decision led to the chaos that Antony’s speech created. Brutus makes patriotism look bad, and he should not be voted for.

            Cassius: Cassius is a conniving, manipulative rascal who kickstarted the events that led to Caesar’s assassination and the chaos that followed by planting ideas into Brutus’ brain. Whether that was part of a master plan is unknowable, but he is, unfortunately, the best candidate on the ballot, so vote for him, even though his representatives did not give much of a convincing argument (it mainly said that Cassius is determined and threw dirt on the other two candidates). He should be voted for because he had only a relatively minor role in events once he got them going. After that, he allowed Brutus to take control. Basically, vote for Cassius because not as much bad stuff can be said about him than the other candidates.