The Financial Times has published a hand-wringing letter from an unknown classics scholar preposterously equating the Fall of Rome with Elon Musk’s refusal to allow his Starlink satellite internet system to be used by Ukraine to attack Russia.

David Kaufman, a Ph.D. candidate in classics at Oxford University, should know better than to stretch Roman history so out of proportion, even if just to attract attention. Rome did not fall because of Musk-like wealthy “tax dodgers and semicultivated usurpers.” In the mid-4th-century Asia was hit by a mega-drought and the Huns moved west, terrorizing the Goths, and driving them to the western borders of the Roman Empire. That is when Emperor Biden—sorry, Emperor Valens—let the Goths in. Rome then found itself alienated from its citizens. (Got that, Kaufman?)

Now, let’s leave the 4th century and go back only as far as 1967, when I and Gianni Agnelli, owner of Fiat and many other things, sailed to the rocky little Italian island of Lampedusa, which is closer to Africa than Italy. The Italians welcomed us as they did every visitor, with wines, fruit, and good wishes. Lampedusa’s local population today is the same as it was then: about 6,000 Italians. But in September of this year, more than 11,000 African migrants arrived, tripling the island’s population in the space of a few days. Fights over food soon broke out between the North African and the sub-Saharan refugees.

Just to put that in perspective, imagine the good old US of A suddenly taking in 700 million souls, as a rather confused man living in the White House gives their cohorts every incentive to continue the invasion. Nearly 4 million migrants have come through American borders since Joe Biden floated into the White House, 2 million this year alone. Border enforcement is to Biden what polysyllabic words are to Kamala Harris. It’s all very convenient for Joe, since the less competent he is, the more prospective Democrat voters pour through our borders.

In fact, the White House has deliberately abdicated all responsibility for controlling the border. When administration officials speak of finding ways to get refugees legal status, they are in reality talking about mass amnesty. This strategy served Obama well and it will do so for the demented resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

In the meantime, Lampedusa is just a foretaste of what’s ahead for Europe. By 2050 the numbers of sub-Saharan Africans migrating to Europe is set to increase their percentage of the population there by six-fold, according to the International Monetary Fund. The native European population is shrinking just as fast as the African one is multiplying. “Do the math!” as they say. And yet, those few wise leaders who oppose unlimited immigration, men such as Hungary’s president, Victor Orbán, are painted as fascists by the lefties who run the news media everywhere, starting with the odious New York Times.

Recall Germany’s Chancellor, Angela “Trojan Horse” Merkel. When millions of Afghans, Iraqis, and Pakistanis joined the Syrians fleeing the war in Syria, the Italians proposed a naval blockade, but the EU’s unelected bureaucrooks decreed it illegal. That is when Merkel stepped in and said, “Wir schaffen das” (“We can handle this”), and allowed into Germany 1.5 million unemployed, military-aged, horny Arab males. No German woman has felt safe since. Only last month in Stuttgart, mobs of Eritreans attacked the police with bricks and sticks.

Sweden, once upon a time the most peaceful country in Europe, is now wracked by Arab gangster wars, all due to the country’s liberal open border policies. Viewed by posterity, the war against Muammar Qaddafi in Libya launched by Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy opened the corridor for human traffickers into mainland Europe. 

Because I have children and grandchildren living in Italy and Austria, my great fear is that this is just the beginning.

In America things are not as bad because of the size of the country, but even the United States will one day run out of space. Take New York, for example. A city already awash with drugs, guns, sleaze, and crazies now has an influx of illegal migrants. Schools are swamped with kids who don’t speak English or even Spanish. Laws passed by left-wingers promise infinite resources to anybody who comes here, but there are only so many shelters, schools, and hospital beds available. New York is starting to look like cities in Europe, where repatriation centers built to house 400 people now have to deal with 10,000.

Kaufman was right about one thing: something like the Fall of Rome is happening. An exodus of biblical scale is in our midst, and yet in both America and Europe government officials, academics, and journalists are busy condemning those reluctant to keep the border gates flung open. Kaufman and his ilk may blame the tax-dodging rich, but they are whistling Dixie. Elon Musk will have left for Mars by the time you-know-what hits the fan.           ◆