“Ancient Sparta explains 2026,” Ishaan Tharoor asserted in a Dec. 30 column for The Washington Post. Readers at first glance might be deceived into thinking Tharoor’s analysis would offer insightful commentary about the continued relevance of ancient Greece. But no.
“Myths of Sparta,” claimed Tharoor, “shadow” the rhetoric of the right, which, he said, implicitly carries themes aligned with fascism and even eugenics. Beyond straining the credulity of his readers, Tharoor’s tired analysis suggests that perhaps a good New Year’s resolution for the left would be to abandon ridiculous historical analogies that ironically say more about their liberal promoters than they do about contemporary conservatives.
Trying (and Failing) to Connect MAGA to Hitler via Sparta
Prominent on Tharoor’s list of supposed champions of the ancient militarized slave-based oligarchy of Sparta is Pete Hegseth. The War Department secretary, Tharoor argued, “openly channels supposed Spartan values when he extols the newfound ‘warrior ethos’ of the Trump administration, tightens the Pentagon’s standards for grooming and physical fitness and links the mission of the U.S. military more closely to the White House’s political agenda.” A Google search failed to find a single example of Hegseth talking about Sparta since he assumed office. And if promoting physical fitness standards is “Spartan,” then so is Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign.
Yet Tharoor soldiered on with his faulty analogy: “The waning of the postwar ‘rules-based’ order and the apparent retreat of globalization — sped, in part, by President Donald Trump’s trade wars — has returned us to a kind of ‘Spartan’ moment, some analysts say.” He cites Swedish economic historian Johan Norberg: “There’s very much the Spartan mentality — that the world is a zero-sum game, and if somebody else benefits, you’re worse off. And that seems to be the Trumpian worldview as well, and why Sparta is an ideal for people on the MAGA right.”
Now I could be wrong, but I doubt Trump spends much time thinking about Thermopylae.
Failing to identify any obvious examples of conservatives embracing a “Spartan worldview,” Tharoor (surprise!) returned to Jan. 6. He noted that “some rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, wore Sparta-themed helmets. They also flew flags emblazoned with the Spartan idiom ‘Molon Labe.’” He also indicted gun owners: “U.S. gun rights activists invoke ‘Molon Labe’ as a slogan, a rejection of anyone who would contravene their Second Amendment freedoms.”
Thus did Tharoor make his tenuous connection: A single appropriated Spartan slogan and a few Sparta-themed helmets at a rally from five years ago are enough for him to associate conservatives with the Nazis, given that Hitler admired the Greek city-state for destroying “sick, weak, deformed children.” This comparison is beyond risible — it is sick, given that it is the contemporary left’s pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia policies that are a threat to vulnerable children, whose “quality of life” is deemed insufficiently worthy of being saved. Approximately two-thirds of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb, for example, are aborted in the United States.
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