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I would say that King Charles did not deserve to be executed. It is important, however, to note that a large part of my answer is because I could not live with another person’s blood on my hands. Morally, I cannot accept sentencing another person to death. This might not be exactly what the question is looking for as a response, but it is a significant part of my reasoning. 

I found the arguments on both sides of the issue to be compelling. I can see how the country would not be able to operate at all if they are constantly in fear of their leader undermining them and acting in his own best interest intead of the interests of his people. It is impossible to have a monarchy last very long if your ruler cannot be trusted. Furthermore, the harm he did to the country and his people was significant and cannot be overlooked. I can understand why it would be difficult to remain loyal to a king that devastates your country and potentially, more personally, your family. That is someone I would want gone immediately. I still do not, however, believe that he needs to be beheaded, but I can see that in those times that would be the realistic way of getting rid of a monarch.

To me, it was very telling that the process of his trial was hardly democratic and that few of the men nominated to the High Court of Justice actually attended the proceedings. It was difficult to get enough men to attend the proceedings and actually vote for him to be executed. Furthermore, the reaction of the crowd when he was beheaded was not that of people who viewed him as a traitor and the fact that people committed suicide because they felt so guily about sentencing him to execution speaks volumes. Though I think King Charles had proven a danger to his country, I do not believe the solution was a beheading

I agree with the decision to kill Charles I. It wasn’t quite tyrannicide because there was a real government involved and it wasn’t one person randomly doing it. Therefore, I think Parliament would have a better chance of putting someone into power next who wasn’t as bad as Charles I.

The facts show that Charles I was an evil leader and a tyrant. After reading about the “Engagement” I was fully convinced that he deserved to be beheaded. He put his own country under military pressure just to ensure that he could be back as King. This is a great example of doing something for personal benefit, but it harms the public.

After reading these different texts, I didn’t have an answer to whether or not Charles should have been executed. What I took away from this was not the right or wrong or even why but the historical context that he was executed. King Charles should have been executed from the side of the parliament because in their eyes he was a tyrant and challenged their power. Had King Charles cooperated with them, his death could have been avoided. However, I believe that in the Position of Charles, he did the correct thing by continuing to preserve the monarchy as well as he could. He was a martyr and royalists rallied behind his cause.

The entire concept is interesting when it comes to the divine right vs the law of the land. When the people of the land demand one thing and the king who claims to be the chosen of God has another idea in mind there is bound to be conflict. It’s especially interesting when one the monarch truly believes he is doing the work of god because morally there is no correct side.

I believe that the king must do anything and everything he can to maintain the monarchy and the inheritance of god and I believe that the people must dispose of a tyrant in order to enact the law of the land. A king cannot be allowed to be above the law or else the effectiveness and legitimacy of the parliament are void.

After reading the articles about the execution of Charles I and the circumstances leading up to it, I think that he did deserve to be executed. I was very surprised that I felt this way because I am against the death penalty, and in my blog post last week I wrote that I didn’t believe tyrannicide was the best solution for getting rid of a tyrant leader. However, in this particular situation, I don’t think that there were many alternative solutions that would not have caused more instability in England, which had already gone through a massive civil war due to Charles’ conflicts with Parliament.

The article outlining the arguments for and against the execution of Charles I points out that Charles surrendered to the Scots in 1646, which ended the civil war, but he was not executed until 1649. During these three years, he was given the opportunity to negotiate a lasting agreement with Parliament and return to his position as king. However, he was not willing to do this because he was extremely stubborn and believed that “his conscience was the voice of God.” This difficult personality was what caused him to have so many problems with Parliament in the first place. Rather than try to make compromises, he convinced a Scottish faction to invade England and help him restore the throne. This would have caused a second civil war when thousands of people had died in the first war a few years earlier. To me, this shows that he was not ever going to change if he was given the chance to rule again, and England needed to get rid of him definitively.

When asked if King Charles I deserved to be executed… my answer is yes. According to the text, although he had a “sense of humor,” and was said to be loyal, he was still a tyrant. And taking into consideration that it takes a lot of boxes to check when it comes to labeling someone a tyrant, it makes the question easier to be answered. Interestingly, what made me question the question is the fact that King Charles I was not the first king to be executed, so why was it such a big deal. But, moving forward, however, I realized this execution was very public and blunt. At this point, it was inevitable for me to compare the execution of King Carles I to the crucifixion Jesus. 

I am not saying that Jesus too was a tyrant, but the amount of publicity and controversy that is put upon the death of King Charles I parallels those seen as Jesus is called to death. Unlike Jesus, King Charles I was as described int he text, selfish as he called for war for his personal gain, killed, and was himself an enemy to the public.

Last night I attended Dr. Kaplan’s discussion on the electoral college. Dr. Kaplan was not interested in changing our opinions of the current system, or persuading us to adopt a new one, but he rather explained the effects that new proposed presidential election systems would have on our political institutions. He made a great point, where he mentioned that shortly after losing the popular vote but winning the electoral college, President Trump was asked if he would still have been elected POTUS if the Electoral college was done away with and the president was selected by a purely popular, direct vote of the people. Trump answered “I still would have won, and I would have won by a whole lot more.” This quote, regardless of whether Trump still would have won or not in a purely popular vote, is very important because it demonstrates that the electoral college has a huge effect on the way politicians campaign. Kaplan notes that we can’t just scrap the system, and expect the same results: such as believing that Clinton still would have won the 2016 election. Without the College, Trump would have campaigned in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Clinton would have campaigned in Texas! The Electoral College shapes much of what we understand about American partisanship, regional political identities, campaign strategies and the locations candidates visit. While a simple concept in itself, it has very complicated effects into all branches of American government. This was not something I had previously thought of as I was under the impression that if not for the electoral college, surely Gore would have won in 2000, and Clinton in 2016.
The electoral college is intricately tied with the leadership qualities, and strategies of our candidates. In different types of potential electoral systems, such as a direct popular vote of the people, Kaplan examines the issues that arise, such as the even greater vulnerability of American people to toxic charismatics, like Donald Trump. In a system where the delegates are selected on a proportional basis rather than the winner takes all system, this cultivates coalition building between party lines, which is something that is currently having immensely detrimental effects on European countries, specifically the UK. These different types of systems would force candidates to campaign extensively in mass media markets, empowering the role of the media and promoting the already dangerous relationship between politics and social media. If there is a change that needs to be made to our election process, Dr. Kaplan did a great job of showing how this would affect, and radically change the way political and social institutions operate in the US, a potential change that could cause even greater divides than physical boundaries of congressional districts.

In every sense of the word, Richard III is a tyrant. In class, we discussed how a leader had to either illegally seize power or abuse their power for personal benefit to be considered a tyrant, and Richard does both. We also determined that a tyrant knows that they are a tyrant. In the movie, there is a scene where Richard wakes up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, and proclaims that he is a villain. In her paper, Bezio compares Richard to United States President Donald Trump. While Trump is often called a tyrant in the media, I believe that giving him this title is a bit of a reach based on these three criteria. Although there is some controversy as to whether Trump was involved in collusion to win the office, I think it is fair to say that Trump did not illegally usurp power. In his interviews from the 80s and 90s, his tone makes it seem like he genuinely believed he would make a good president, not for pride or to boost his ego, but because he thought he saw ways to make America profitable. Finally, we will never know for sure whether or not he sees himself as a tyrant; I have a feeling that even he did, he would not be very forthcoming about it, especially ahead of another election.

While I do not believe Trump is a tyrant, I do believe that he has some tyrannical tendencies. One could make the argument that it is a politicians job to influence the public, but I think that Trump’s mudslinging strategies against his challengers reaches into the manipulation category. During his campaign, Trump exemplified the idea that “all press is good press.” To his credit, his strategy worked. His outlandish accusations against his opposition, sexually and racially charged comments, and his celebrity status were enough to get the attention of voters, and his idealistic promises were enough to get many of those voters to support him. One behavior is not enough to earn a label like tyrant, but it is hard to deny that Trump possess traits that one might describe as tyrannical.

Richard III is someone that we can relate to in class because he is an example of a tyrant. He used ways to win over the people that were morally wrong. The perfect word to describe the ways that he used to get people to follow him is toxic charisma. Charisma is used by almost all leaders and is very useful when campaigning and getting people to vote for you or follow your beliefs. Richard III used toxic charisma when he was crowned, he let all of his people down and went behind their back. Richard III is viewed as being a tyrant to many people because of this trait of toxic charisma.

Someone that can be portrayed as having toxic charisma today is Donald Trump. Many people believe him to have  toxic charisma and use it to portray his willingness to change the country positively. Although many people believe that he is narcissistic and selfish. On the other hand some people like him a lot and the stuff he has done for this country. Going back to what makes someone a tyrant, I don’t believe that someone like Donald trump is a tyrant because he hasn’t committed murder or done something dictator-like to be called a tyrant unlike someone like Richard III.

In my opinion, there are good leaders that stand for good causes and do everything in their power to have a movement that involves the greater good. Good leaders are the ones who ask the public for their opinions and does their absolute best to satisfy their needs/wants. A bad leader is someone who does things for their own satisfactory needs. They are usually people who, during the election, would lie to the public and tell them what they want to hear and what would get them into office. There are a lot of good and bad of things that all presidents obtain but the best leader are the ones who the overall good feels good about getting behind their movement. 

In the article, the idea that leaders who are intimidating and have a scary appearance are not extremely liked. This is the case because, as we discussed in the last class, a charismatic leader who is attractive are liked more and have a higher chance of people getting behind their movement. Most likely, if a leader is a charismatic caring individual, more likely than not, the leader will do more for the greater good. 

Richard III is a perfect person to tie together what we have been talking about in class which is leadership and tyranny. He made his way to the throne by using toxic charisma and this shows the bad type of charisma. Bezio compares Donald Trump to Richard III. Trump is a modern day Richard III. He is in the way of how he used toxic charisma to get the the “throne”, or presidency, minus the murders of course. Richard III was an actual tyrant while Trump only shows characteristics of one and can’t be truly named one.

Personally I could always see how Trump used Toxic charisma to gain supporters even before he was elected. However, it was interesting to see how Richard III could gain supporters while being such an evil tyrant. As humans in the past and in the present day you would think we would see the signs of a sort of tyrannic leader and wouldn’t let the gain power, but as we can see one case from the past (Richard III), and one case from the present (Trump), we continue to let these people who use toxic charisma to gain power.

I think that what we have been discussing recently in class involving tyrannicide and toxic charismatic leadership correlates well with Richard III. In the film, we can see how an individual can go to extremes to arrive at power. In this case, Richard goes to the extent of many murders in order to gain the power he desires. Throughout the movie, we see a display of toxic charisma by Richard as he manipulates those around him in order to justify the killings of his own family members, members of Queen Elizabeth’s family, and Queen Margaret’s family. With these unethical actions, I can conclude that Richard could be considered a tyrant due to the fact that he is doing all of this for his own personal gain.

Something that was really interesting to me were the parallels drawn in Dr. Bezio’s “Crooked Politics” between Richard and President Trump. In each scene, Dr.Bezio is able to connect a part of the film with an involvement with Trump. For example, a community of women band together to try to prevent Richard from reaching the thrown. Similarly, women began to come forward and blame Trump of sexual assault. Furthermore, it is also astonishing how the events in the movie line up with the events in Trump’s path to presidency chronologically. Overall, the connections between “Crooked Politics” and Richard III were very fascinating and they furthered my understanding of what a tyrant can be considered.

Throughout the entirety of Bezio’s piece she demonstrates the historical value within “cultural media artifacts” as she makes parallels to both the political and socio economic behaviors in Shakespeare’s play and present day America. One of the most interesting parallels made in the article is about the presence of feminism as a political factor, usually being combated by a toxic charismatic male leader. In the piece she compares the 2016 election of Trump v Clinton and the relationship between Elizabeth and Richard III, which I thought was a very interesting connection considering the differences in time periods and settings. The best way to understand the comparison, for me at least, was with the analyzation of the quote she included by Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt. He described Richard as someone who thinks he can

“…grab from any woman anything he wants, however much she might resist… ‘Relenting fool. And shallow changing woman!’”

Instantly my mind was taken back to the extremely problematic interview of Trump where he says the infamous quote “Grab her by the pussy”. With the inclusion of the quote by Greenblatt the comparison between the two men become even more clear–two toxic charismatic male leaders that encourage the disavowment of female agency. Later in the article Bezio draws comparisons between Elizabeth and Hillary Clinton as both women that compete with the men despite their vicious attacks, Richard claiming Elizabeth a witch and Trump claiming Clinton a liar/fraud. The demonstration of both women as powerful and fearless leaders in a system renowned for patriarchal behavior, especially in the midst of such behavior, is a significant parallel made and allows me to question what it suggests for women politicians in the future.

I thought that the interaction between Richard III and what we have been learning in class was really interesting. It’s fascinating that what Shakespeare wrote about so long is still valid. The idea of charismatic leadership and toxic charisma is something that impacted life to the extent that there were plays about it and it is still relevant today. Throughout the different class periods, we have learned about the impacts of toxic charisma and tyranny. I would classify Richard III as having toxic charisma and being a tyrant. He was able to fool people into following him with promises of a better life and land. Basically he was manipulating his right-hand man by telling him that he was gonna get land if he helped Richard. His right hand man never ended up getting the land he was promised.

I believe that he is a tyrant because he used his toxic charisma to gain a place of power. He is also willing to do anything in his power to get that crown. He killed so many people both directly and by influencing other people to do it. He only has regard for himself and his goals which is one of the clear requirements for being a tyrant. He is a clear narcissist who only cares about reaching his goals and doesnt care who he hurts to get there.

Within the first 15 minutes of the movie Richard III, I was already interested and confused. I thought it was interesting, just as Bezio said, that Shakespeare chose to focus on Richard and how clear he portrayed his evil tendencies. I also found how heartless and Richard’s inconsideration for others bazar. I could not believe that he would visit the wife of the man he just murdered and ask for her heart so soon. We talked about charisma in class and it was interesting to see how Richard used his charisma to try to win over this woman even while she was in grief.

Bezio compares Richard III to Donald Trump by explaining how toxic charisma affected us 400 years ago and continues to affect us today. Bezio provides numerous examples to show how these two people correlate. I remember talking about this in class as well and someone asked if we could consider Donald Trump a Tyrant but we came to the conclusion that he had tendencies but was not an actual tyrant. However, we also said a tyrant is a toxic charismatic and Bezio argues that Trump is one too, so can we consider him a Tyrant under those terms?

I definitely agree with everything stated in the “Crooked Politics” by Bezio. It proves the theory that there is truly “nothing new under the sun”. The amount of parallels between Shakespear’s storyline and Trump’s behavior since the 2016 election is astonishing. Not only did he use the exact same tactics as Richard III but it links very closely to our idea of Tyranny. Richard the III became a medieval tyrant of sorts degrading other people as his tactic to get into office and through his reign. It is sad to me that we are not past the point of accepting this sort of behavior from our leader in the era of innovation or cultivation that we are currently in.

In the article, Bezio highlighted how both Richard III and Trump played on the fears of others to make their way into office. This links strongly to the idea of Charisma, importantly, the way that we discussed it in class. Charisma has nothing to do with qualification, care, or authenticity. Instead, it has everything to do with what a person can say and who they can convince. Nothing is rooted in truth or transparency. This is what allowed both Trump and Richard III to refuse to answer to those who are in office as a form of Checks and Balances (Congress).

I appreciate the tone of optimism used at the end of the article. However, if we as a culture keep allowing charisma to overshadow quality and honesty, then we will remain in the cycle of leaders who do in fact abuse their power. We will be stuck with leaders who are held accountable to no one and who feel free to say anything to anyone no matter how degrading. The main difference between the Richard III era and the one that we are currently living in is that back then there were enough people who saw Richard’s actions and were repulsed.

I fear that now the country is too immune to the actions of Trump to be as repulsed as it would take to replace him. In other words, no one supports his actions, however, they may vote for him again due to party affiliation despite everything that Trump has done that people may personally disagree with.

However, since apparently we are currently living in a play- I do hope that Bezio is right and that our story will end similarly to what Shakespeare intended.