If I had a mind to I could go into the sort of painstaking detail that would require another ten posts about this subject. As it stands though I think things in our current day are progressing at a rate that does not require much elaboration on my part. I do want to highlight a few notable points of escalation that happened in the waning days of The Roman Republic and what to look for in our current day that will tip you off to what step in the collapse, reorganization, evolution, revolution, call it what you will, that we are at.
In the last 90 or so years of the Republic following that Punic Moment I described in a previous post a series of politicians known as The Populari would begin to appear from time to time. Around every ten years or so. This starts with the Gracci brothers and ends with Julius Caesar. I do not consider Augustus a Populari and I do not consider Julius an Emperor. Almost without exception these figures are always killed. The only difference is how long they manage to stay alive after they take up the mantle. The United States has been seeing Populist figures from time to time throughout its history, but I suspect that is going to begin accelerating just like it did for the Romans. In our era we tend not kill our politicians in the literal sense (give it time everything old becomes new again) but they do get assassinated in every other sense of the word.
The thing that we need to watch is the progression. The Gracci used the Tribunate in unprecedented ways and were almost immediately killed. They also were naive enough to try their antics with almost no protection or plan for hostilities by the establishment. This is a bit like Bernie Sanders, the socialist goofball, seemed to think the establishment would play fair and walked into the same trap, twice. Huey Long knew the game he was playing, but didn’t think FDR had the spine to solve that particularly dangerous little problem known as “The Kingfish” with extreme prejudice (allegedly). Drusus tried to hide in his house to keep himself untouchable, the establishment just bribed or blackmailed one of his inner circle to stab him in the back. Trump knew the establishment would play dirty tricks and thought he could outsmart them, except he hired the establishment, including his own son-in-law, and they did the job for them. Thus far Trump has managed to survive this and possibly make a return, much like Marius would several times, but do not think the establishment does not have a few more cards up its sleeve.
Eventually the Populari would get wise and realize the only answer to the establishment thugs was their own thugs, and would never be out in public without for all intents and purposes, their own private armies. This was made easier by the Marian reforms which would shift the soldiers’ loyalty primarily to the general who was responsible for paying them. Thus far we have not really seen this in American Politics in the same sense. When you start seeing former Antifa members getting cleaned up and going around with left wing politicians and if Trump starts getting militias to provide security for his rallies we’ll probably be there. My gut tells me though that that will be the next batch of populists. Trump’s movement is probably growing beyond him and the left is still looking for its next star (what, you thought it was AOC?). This is when things will get violent. The end of the Weimar Republic is a good idea of how it will look. It will start off as minor street brawls between the groups, but will be very disorganized. We have seen some of that, but it has largely stayed in large cities. When it becomes a regular thing in even moderate and small cities during campaign season that’s when we are in this phase.
Of course the natural progression after this is Civil War. Marius hitched his wagon to a Populari to achieve his supposed oracle of a seventh Consularship. This resulted in a nasty civil war where the establishment of the time turned to a man named Sulla to put the Republic back together. The second U.S. Civil War will probably not be as dramatic, it will probably be more economic and cultural than military. Keep in mind, none of this is likely to follow the same neat order or progression. These things can happen concurrently or not at all. Our politicians are typically much more arms length from the public than Roman politicians were. Some would say we are already in our second Civil War, so we may very well have skipped some steps or just be doing it in a slightly different order. The interesting thing to note about Sulla though is that he tried to have a young Julius Caesar killed because he saw him for exactly what he was. He was convinced not to kill him but he said, “…and I warn you in him goes a thousand Marius.”
Right now the factions are still forming, most normal people are still unaware of how bad it really is. Eventually they will fully coalesce around strong charismatic leaders. One side may be put on it’s back heels for a short time, but eventually they will reach a relative parity. Usually spurred by some sort of tragic event. In the Romans case it was the assassination of Julius Caesar. In our case I think it is going to be a total loss in confidence in the system itself by both Democrats and Republicans broadly speaking. Explicit secession may not happen, but a sort of de facto nullification by both sides will begin in earnest. The start of this is already happening. The thing stopping the complete disillusionment is probably the current ruling generation, The Boomers. They can’t stop it, but it will probably limp on until they lose power, which is approaching quickly, this next recession will probably accelerate that.
Who is Augustus though? He was not a Populari, in fact, he was quite conservative. The genius of Augustus is at every step he pays homage to the trappings and ceremony of the Republic. He steps in to “restore” the Republic and makes himself a figure that can not be done without. One universal truth in history is that most people abhor chaos, and Augustus was the man to provide order after decades of chaos, and he actually succeeded, that is the difference. With our current unsettled times and a general sense of clamoring by all sides for some sort of return to “normalcy” a figure will eventually appear that will offer just that. Here’s the thing though, The Republic, our Republic, is already dead. Sorry to just put it out there, but it’s true. So that figure is going to be appealing to a mythology, and the people will be so desperate for order that “The Republic” is whatever that figure says it is, or appears to humbly suggest it is. Thus it was with Augustus and so it will be with our figure.
We are a few steps removed from that though, and who knows, a lot can change, and change quickly in our troubled times. In short though X marks the spot at around the middle of the fall. I’d like to give you better news, and there is always hope that some Mass Formation Sanity could suddenly break out to slow our roll, but while history isn’t a perfect map certain conditions usually yield fairly predictable results.
So now we are Waiting for Augustus.