This commentary is by Greg Guma of Burlington, author of “Restless Spirits & Popular Movements: A Vermont History.”
If you want to seize power, the first step is to stoke divisions. Elections may be about addition, but overturning a political or social order starts with exaggerating differences and deepening resentments.
Then you need a martyr, or many, and calls for revenge.
After the assassination of Julius Caesar, his nephew Augustus tracked down and brutally dispatched the conspirators. Then he established himself as Rome’s first emperor. After that, power dramatically shifted away from representative democracy and toward centralized authority, an imperial order with a dictator wielding almost absolute power.
After the failure of his first attempt to seize power, Donald Trump is now trolling for a new pretext and waiting for an opportunity — like Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed coup d’état in 1923. He went to prison and was banned from speaking for several years. But 10 years later, Hitler was German chancellor, and eventually became The Fuhrer.
One current Trump tactic is bravado in the face of his current indictments, with the clear intention of sparking another MAGA uprising in his defense. But he hedged his bet with a provocative rally in Waco, Texas, on March 25 — the 30th anniversary of the Branch Davidian siege in the same place. A perfect spot to rally the troops and stoke rebellion. There will be others.
In 1993, federal agents, aiming to arrest cult leader David Koresh, surrounded his compound in a standoff that lasted more than a month. It ended in a deadly fire that killed 76 people, including 25 children. Deep resentments, distrust of the federal government, and predictions about the collapse of the American Republic have circulated on the Right ever since.
After seizing power, Emperor Augustus went after the ability to introduce and veto laws, as well as command of the army. Until then, military leaders had stayed out of domestic affairs, and the Senate was a check on authoritarian challenges. The emperor also took control over officials in executive positions. No citizen could hold office without the emperor’s personal consent.
In other words, he gained power over public institutions by eliminating critics and repopulating the bureaucracy with loyalists. As president, Trump was working on that, and would certainly finish the job in a second term.
As a result of the redistribution of power, Rome’s popular assemblies, a legislative structure that had limited executive power, became less important. They had operated on the basis of direct democracy and involved ordinary citizens.
In theory, the powers wielded by Rome’s emperors came from the Senate. But frequently it served as a legitimizer of the emperor’s expanding rule. The rubber-stamping of a dictator’s power plays sometimes provides a patina of legitimacy. In America, the Senate can convict a president after impeachment, but it has never actually happened.
On the other hand, the Roman Senate was composed of elite and intellectual citizens and also influenced public opinion. It could declare the emperor an enemy of the state. Or, after a dictator’s removal or death, it could wipe the record of his reign from official history.
In the U.S., struggles to control the national narrative and shape the teaching of history are underway. It’s almost impossible to erase important events, except in insulated strongholds. But U.S. states are working on it, becoming laboratories for autocracy.
Meanwhile, the balance between legislative and executive power is shifting, aided by gridlock, obstruction, and a preoccupation with investigations and payback rather than finding solutions to what looks like a global spasm.
Maintenance is a chronic problem and a key to an empire’s longevity. While bringing Rome wealth, power and prestige, expansion ultimately helped bring about its downfall. An excellent road system contributed to trade and mobility, military and otherwise, much like America’s infrastructure. Both the U.S. interstate highway system and the internet were initially designed with military purposes in mind. But the cost of maintaining the infrastructure of a vast empire weighs heavily.
In Rome’s case, both the treasury and administration were seriously overstretched by domestic instability and persistent attacks from foreign forces. Rome’s emperors tried to solve some of their problems through internal reforms. For example, Diocletian split control of the empire into western and eastern administrations. He thought it would be easier to manage.
But it was a fatal choice. For the next 100 years, Rome went through more divisions. Finally, it split into a Western and Eastern Empire, a permanent break that changed the world.
Known as the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Empire survived for almost 1,000 more years. Rome’s rule didn’t last half as long. The fall was complete by 476, when a German chieftain deposed the last emperor.
It’s a cautionary tale. Lincoln warned about what happens to a house (or nation) divided — it “cannot stand.” Yet these days right-wing lightning rod Marjorie Taylor Green and others have a similar plan, a national “divorce” for Red and Blue America.
Various emperors introduced managerial innovations. Yet, in the end, conflicts between East and West, plus external pressures and the depletion of Rome’s wealth and infrastructure, made the empire vulnerable to collapse. It sounds familiar.
