 you find a scapegoat who you can attribute the anger of the gods to. And this gives you an explanation for why bad things continue to happen despite your best efforts as emperor to try to fix them. Now, a lot of ink has been spilled about modern use of the rhetoric of decline, particularly around U.S. President Donald Trump and his nostalgic motto, Make America Great Again. But the trope of decline is a constant in politics and has been for thousands of years.