The American Revolution

The title of this post is borrowed from Ronald Syme’s 1939 book The Roman Revolution, which details the transformation of Rome from Republic to Empire. Many of his ideas and conclusions have been successfully challenged (guilty), but it, and he, remains the godfather of works on the Late Republic and Augustus for good reason.

I have compared the US to Rome in other environments, but there is one specific recent incident that warrants attention. Some Roman background first, then the American parallel.

In 133BC, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a man from a wealthy, prominent and well connected family, ran for, and was elected as, tribune of the plebs. This post, which originated in the struggle of the orders, a socio-political conflict in the early Republic, was designed to allow plebian citizens to be protected from arbitrary and tyrannical decisions of magistrates, who were mostly patricians (the 10%). To allow them to protect citizens from these judgements, they were granted an absolute veto over all government business. They could, simply by saying ‘I intercede’ (intercedo), cause a meeting (of a popular assembly or the Senate) to be stopped dead in its tracks. This was, then, quite a powerful position: they had to be ‘on side’ with a proposal for it to have any chance of success.

Tribunes were effectively officers attached to the popular assemblies in Rome. These assemblies were the final legal authority in the state: only they could pass laws. By a law of 287BC, resolutions of the popular assemblies (plebascita – plebiscites) were given the force of law (binding on all citizens).

Gracchus attempted to institute land reform, specifically by redistributing what was called public land (ager publicus), that is, land which was under general Roman control. Think of it as crown land. There was an old law which said no one citizen was allowed to own more than 500 iugura of this land (roughly 320 acres). This law had largely been ignored, and Gracchus sought to reinforce it. His proposal received considerable opposition, including one of his colleagues (there were ten tribunes, freshly elected every year) instituting his veto. Gracchus had a novel response to this: he proposed a bill to the people to remove his colleague on the grounds that he was not acting in the interest of the people. This was technically permissible, but unheard of due to precedent and tradition. But it worked: the colleague, a man named Antonius, was indeed deposed, and Gracchus’ bill was passed.

This was a serious threat to the 1%: they had cultivated, and gained wealth from, this ager publicus for generations in some cases, and they did not want to give it up. So they tried another trick: funding bills, such as that for Tiberius’ land commission, had to originate in the Senate. Tiberius was voted a pittance to fund the land commission. However, as the commission began to do its work, an Eastern monarch died and bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. Gracchus pounced, proposing that some of the wealth from this new province be used to fund the land commission, and it was so.

Simultaneously, Gracchus had initiated the mob into the two unchallenged areas of Senatorial control: finance and foreign affairs. But the shock to the system was not to end there. Tiberius’ term in office was set to expire. He went before the people and said that he wanted to run for office again to continue his work. The mob was restless, and Gracchus raised his hand to head to call for calm. Senatorial spies, watching proceedings, though Gracchus was calling for a crown. Since the Roman Republic had been founded in reaction to monarchy, someone calling for a crown (real or imagined) was a cause for panic. Conservatives, abhorred at the prospect of a return to monarchy, broke up the benches and beat Tiberius Gracchus and 300 of his followers to death.

There are a number of takeaways from this series of events. First, Gracchus had set a terrible set of precedents: entering the mob into traditional Senatorial spheres of (unchallenged) influence, deposing a colleague who attempted to veto his proposal and proposing to run for office again. These last two are os particular note, since there were two key concepts of office holding at Rome: collegiality and limited tenure of office. Gracchus had now undermined both of these. However, the worst reaction came from the conservatives in the Senate: to win a political dispute, kill your opponents.

That was a lot of Roman background, but I hope you will see the parallel to America. During the 2010 elections, Senatorial candidate Sharon Angle said that if conservatives sis not get their way at the ballot box ‘ya know, people are gonna start looking for those Second Amendment [guns] remedies’. Mrs. Angle was rightly eviscerated for this remark, but the precedent had been set: violence as even an option for settling political disputes. During the Obama Presidency, he has been derided as a Kenyan, a Socialist, a Marxist, a Liberal (do not make me laugh – and also how is that a bad thing?) and so on. As HBOs Bill Maher said ‘I think what they mean by all this is ‘he’s black” – and there is a degree of truth to that. More to the point, the American right, much like the Roman conservatives, is stuck in their bubble: George H.W. Bush is not in office anymore – you can’t just use the word ‘Liberal’ and expect it to stick as an insult. But I digress. The first example of discussion of the use of force in American politics: Sharon Angle, 2010. And it was by no means the last during that time.

Cast your eyes forward to more recently. GOP Presidential Nominee Donald Trump was at a rally and he suggested that, were Hilary Clinton to be elected, she would abolish the Second Amendment, but perhas ‘Second Amendment people’ could solve the issue, which has been read as gun rights activists preventing her from appointing SCOTUS judges, or perhaps even killing the judges themselves. Mrs. Angle was a Senatorial candidate, as if that were not bad enough, but Mr. Trump is running for President. This is dangerous, folks. The direct advocation of violence by a Presidential candidate. What this space.

To end on a somewhat lighter note, Mr. Trump is an idiot for his utter ignorance of how politics works: Mrs. Clinton is not going to be able to appoint any SCOTUS judges, as the GOP, who control, for the moment, the Senate and the House, will block all nominees of hers, as they have done for Mr. Obama.

Moron

CA