Sallust’s other history, The Conspiracy of Catiline, records the efforts of Lucius Sergius Catiline, a demagogue and dissolute patrician, to foment populist revolution in 65-63 BCE. Catiline recognized that “poverty does not cost much and cannot lose much,” and he developed a large following among penniless plebeians. Promising to repudiate all debt and to slaughter the Senate and other enemies (a vigorous way to drain the proverbial swamp), Catiline raised a secret militia of some 10,000 men and sought support from Rome’s adversaries. The plot was quashed when leaked information convinced the Senate to vote emergency powers to the consuls. Catiline and his militia were annihilated in battle with loyal troops; other suspected ringleaders were summarily executed. This restored a semblance of republican order for a few years, but civil war between Caesar and senatorial factions ultimately left Caesar in uncontested control of the vestiges of the Republic.
America’s founders knew this history well, and they designed our Constitution with the goal of avoiding the corruption of morality and subversion of institutions that Sallust described. If Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and others were to wake up today, I think the parallels between 21st century America and the final decades of the Roman Republic would leave them heartsick.
- Influence in our political system is wide-open for purchase by latter-day Jugurthas. Consider the lobbying wars for influence in the Trump Administration between the feuding (not to mention neo-feudal) petro-monarchies of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. This is of course a bipartisan affair; for every Republican Paul Manafort pimping for Putin’s Russia, there’s a Democrat Tony Podesta selling national virtue to other sleazy foreign powers.
- Inequality is undermining institutions of self-government. A small minority has sucked up most of the new wealth the country has generated over the past few decades. New technologies and new trade patterns have created disruptions that have erupted into social discontent that 21st-century forms of bread and circuses—entertainment apps and opiods—do nothing to allay. Just like the Russians and oil sheikhdoms, the well-connected buy influence to tilt tax laws and regulations to their benefit, while confused, angry have-nots form a made-to-order audience for any demagogue who might promise to make Rome America great again.
The burden of endless war in the Greater Middle East is straining America’s institutions just as it did the Roman Republic’s. Congress ducks its constitutional responsibility for authorizing military deployments, which are financed by soaring national debt (currently about $21 trillion and growing by nearly $1 trillion a year) that we will never pay off. The burden of the actual fighting falls on a small group of volunteers, while the rest of us do little more than ritually thanking them for their service.
These symptoms of dysfunction in our American Republic are serious but, as far as I can judge (and hope), not yet fatal. If we understand their causes and consequences, we can start the long, hard process of fixing them and returning to the vision of Madison and Hamilton, Washington and Jefferson. It’s here that we can benefit from Sallust’s reflections on how his own Republic lost its way some 2,100 years ago. With reflection, good will, and good luck, we can keep the American Republic’s future from repeating—or even rhyming with—the Roman Republic’s history.
At the time Rome fell, could it truly be called a Republic?
We already trashed our Constitution by allowing the Kenyanesian Usurpation.
The final straw is the unchecked illegal alien inundation.
Started 30 years ago by the GHW Bush administration.
A poor analysis.
President Trump is working to restore the American Republic.
President Trump is overcoming the “bread and circuses” (welfare and Progressive Media).
Well, one thing we have in common with the Romans is barbarian hordes regularly breaching our borders.
The Roman Republic had the Cursus honorum. A kind of roadmap for Senatorial public service. Hold this office for a year like quaestor, aedile, or praetor and move to the next, requiring age limits and holding lower offices before ascending the ladder to consul. Once the Romans stopped following the rules they laid out corruption crept in. Gaius Marius held the consulship 7 times!
We need term limits to curb rampant corruption in DC.
It WILL. Nothing is eternal other than the Almighty. The ONLY questions are: when, and what nation will dominate the world afterwards (and how terrible will they be for the world... China and Russia are the most likely, and Human Rights are not high on their lists.)
A poor and stretching analysis, by an ex-CIA analyst.
Can America implode? Absolutely.
When nearly one half of the country do not see that we have a sovereign nation (or a Constitutional Republic), and the other half determined to maintain it the other way. Eventually things are going to heat up to boiling point.
Some other factors (and some listed in this article) may contribute to the fabric tearing apart, but fundamentally it comes down to the above two factions I mentioned.
Ok...so we might not either...