How Republics Unravel: From Rome to. . . America?

Earlier this month, a man armed with a semiautomatic rifle was apprehended on a South Florida golf course. He was allegedly planning to murder Donald Trump on the links. It was the second attempted assassination against Trump in two-and-a-half months.

It’s likely that the gunman, Ryan W. Routh, was acting alone. But he is not alone in his hatred for Trump. In the eyes of many Americans, the 45th president is an existential threat to our republic. And ever since he won the Republican nomination for president in 2016, his opponents have treated him as such. They have also been repeatedly stunned by the fact that Trump breaks the norms of modern politics. From the minor—commenting on the size of his manhood—to the unprecedentedly major—denying that he lost the 2020 presidential election. 

The dynamic between Trump and his haters has changed the chemistry of American politics. In 2016, Trump shocked the country by leading rallies where his adoring fans chanted, “Lock her up,” referring to his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Eight years later, crowds at Kamala Harris rallies belt out a similar chant, calling for Trump’s imprisonment. 

In this respect Ryan Routh is part of a larger problem tearing our country apart. When the other side is considered completely beyond the pale—a threat to our very system of government—it’s worth breaking the norms of political decorum to stop them getting into power. You hear it from both parties. Trump is an “extinction-level event.” If Kamala wins, our country will become, in Trump’s words, “Venezuela on steroids.”

One escalation begets the next, until politics goes past the point of no return. We take it for granted today that we settle our elections with voting, not shooting. But republics don’t last forever. And when they fall, violence almost always follows. Because the stakes are so high, it’s essential to ask: What leads a republic to choose the gun over the ballot? 

To try answering that question, I looked back to ancient Rome, a republic that not only fell but fell because of the rule-breaking of one man—and the response of his enemies. His name was Tiberius Gracchus. Like Trump, he was a member of the elite who turned on the elites, who channeled the resentments and anger of the common people against a system that had turned against him. Like Trump, he disregarded the unwritten political rules of his era. And like Trump, Tiberius prompted his enemies to disregard the norms themselves.

“You see this escalation very quickly with Tiberius Gracchus,” Adrian Goldsworthy, a historian of ancient Rome, told The Free Press. “He crosses some lines, sets some precedents, and then they suppress him in a way that sets an even worse precedent.”

Imagine January 6 in reverse: A mob of angry senators rioting after an election, breaking the legs off their chairs to fashion clubs, attack the people who supported a populist leader—who had just won an election. That is how Tiberius met his end.

In America, we remain a republic unbroken, but this episode of history offers salutary lessons. We have endured Trump’s most serious norm violation: his efforts to steal back an election he claimed was stolen from him by the forces that smeared and defamed him during his presidency. His attempts to send slates of fake electors to Congress to delay the certification of that election. His supporters breaking into the Capitol, menacing legislators.

And yet the cycle of escalations between Trump and his opponents continues to strain our foundations like no political crisis since the Civil War. In Rome, this cycle led to bloodshed—and eventually, the death of the republic itself. Is this a blueprint for America’s future?

You probably know about last year’s trend of American men confessing on TikTok how often they think about the Roman Empire. I’m a bit different. I’m obsessed with what preceded the empire, Rome’s republic. Empires are a dime a dozen in human history. They rise and fall, from Babylon to the Soviet Union. But republics—a form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the people—these are orchids: rare, precious, and fleeting. If you take the long view of human history, tyranny is the norm. A system that checks the power of its leaders and legislators and makes them accountable to citizens? That’s special.