The Fall of the Republic

Has anyone else read Robert Harris’s trilogy about the fall of the Roman Republic?

It’s a chronicle — told in the point of view of Cicero’s slave Tiro — of how Rome went from a very flawed (but at least trying) representational republic to a dictatorship in just a handful of years. It is excellent, heartbreaking, and thought provoking.

And it is happening again.

Seriously.

It all started in Rome with ever-rising income disparity, which then spiraled down into chaos and the loss of even a whiff of democracy. The same damn thing has been happing in the US for the last 30+ years. American income inequality has been steadily climbing since Ronald Regan gutted both the tax system and unions in the 1980s, and now the USA is reaping a vile harvest of child mortality and hopelessness.

In Rome there were a handful of men and women who had decisive roles to play in the fall of the republic, and they have analogs in the modern Fall of America. There is Trump as Clodius, whipping up the mob into such a froth that it would happily make the Senate House a pyre and use our Constitution to light the blaze … all the while screaming that they were the ultimate patriots. There is Bernie Sanders as Cato, ideologically pure but so unwilling to compromise politically that he became little more than a figurehead for the those who saw the danger Rome was in. Finally, there’s Hilary Clinton as Cicero, loyal to the idea of Rome but slowly — with the best of intentions but always with the eye of maintaining or gaining authority — compromising her way into exile.

Cicero attempted to find a middle path, a way to stop Julius Caesar without causing a civil war, and in his efforts to prevent the dismantling of the Republic he aided it’s downfall because he always traded short-term gains for long-term goals. Even after he realized his mistakes, Cicero still compromised himself in an effort to use Octavian to head Mark Antony off at the pass. As a result, the followers of Cato despised him as a wishy-washy turncoat and he inadvertently opened the way for Octavian to gain a throne.

Octavian had him killed anyway.

Then, as now, there were men and women who were immensely powerful in politics but routinely sold away their rights in order to score a point over a political opponent, cajole an office or appointment for themselves, or please the rabble whom they needed to vote for them. They would betray allies, and ally themselves with the devil, for another drop of prestige, never seeing that it would cost them everything in the end. They are only named and known to history buffs nowadays, but in their time they were as famous as McConnell and Pelosi. Some of them — like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan — traded their souls, gutted the judicial system, and backstabbed on behalf of tinpot tyrants in order to appease and please the gods of wealth who ruled them. Some of them, like Pelosi and Clinton, made deals with the fools they despised and feared in order to hold on to their status and influence … and to ALSO  placate the gods of wealth who dictated to them as much as to their enemies.

The Republic crashed in large part because those who should have defended it to the easy way out, assuming things couldn’t get that bad. History repeated itself in 2016, when McConnell stole a seat on the SCOTUS because of the spineless hand-wringing-in-lieu-of-fighting Democrats who were so convinced that Cicero — intelligent, mighty Cicero — would triumph that they decided not to make waves and stir up trouble in the yellow press by battling for the empty SCOTUS chair. It might have cost them votes. It might have cost them THEIR cushy seat at the table. Better to pander and placate than resist and risk!  

Then there are the rank and file federal politicians who, like the pedarii of the Roman Senate, exchange the moral high ground for favors, for a little more influence, for a little more money, and myopically feather their nest from the carcass of the eagle they claim to serve. Evils that some did actively, others did by passively; the passive pedarii who simply watched their opponents create havoc in the capital, but remained ‘civil’ out of fear of becoming a target as well. They have all too often exchanged their vote for their own political safety and their own needs, leaving principles and the greater good in the dust. 

At a crucial moment in Rome, there was a last-ditch effort for the Republic that may have prevailed — but it would have needed a tax on the very rich to pay for the troops to fight the would-be despots. Rather than do that, the Senators of Rome made a deal with Octavian. The final hope for the Republic was sacrificed to keep a few wallets a little fatter. A few years later, Octavian became Emperor and made the Senators into stylish symbols without substance. They were still rich … in everything but dignity and autonomy. Likewise, modern politicians dance to whatever tune their corporate masters play in the hopes of campaign donations that will allow them to remain in office, rather than sacrifice anything in a desperate attempt to fight the Lucre Overlords. Like the craven politicians of Rome, they keep the trappings of power, and lose the essence of it.

Whether they supported the constitutional ideal or the entitlement of a few, they wheeled, they dealed, they stayed well-heeled … and like the Senators of Rome they discovered that the Republic was the price they all paid for their success. The US constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the voting systems that make or break a democracy are being systematically destroyed by the new SCOTUS. The game has been rigged so that resistance becomes ineffective, and having refrained from the battle, the center-left has probably already lost the war.

The American Empire is over. Thanks to gerrymandering and stacked courts, it will be years — decades — before the USA will recover even a small portion of its former glory.

The only thing America’s final fall is missing is either a Julius Cesare or an Octavian … there is as yet no leader determined to turn American into a theocratic kleptocracy that has the brains or skill to succeed. Trump, who isn’t bright enough to pour piss out of a boot even if the instructions are written on the heel, is Putin’s willing slave, and a figurehead for the Crassus-like figures using him to gain even more riches from the death throes of our democracy. Nevertheless, this puffed up little Putin Puppet is doing enough damage as it is. God help us when a smart sociopath gains power.

My least favorite part of the Scifi series Battlestar Galactica was their purported religious doctrine that “this has all happened before; this will all happen again.” I thought it trite and facetious. Now I’m wondering if it was secretly holy writ by the Goddess of Nerds trying to warn us of impending doom.