As I re-watch Garrett Fagan's Teaching Company lecture series on the History of Ancient Rome, I can't help but see parallels between the situation which started the downfall of the Roman Republic beginning in 133 BC with the election to Tribune of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and the political situation starting with the ascension of Donald Trump through the year 2022. Was Trump a modern day Tiberius Gracchus?
Though experiencing the typical bumps in the road of any growing Republic, the Roman Republic had largely avoided any major internal crisis through to the 2nd century BC. That changed when Tiberius Gracchus was elected as one of two Tribunes in the Tribal Assembly of the Plebs (common people) in 133 BC. A member of a family of the highest prestige, I see Tiberius Gracchus as a man with a Caesarian view of his own importance. Namely, a man at the top of the social order destined to change everything by his actions. I think his motives are beyond reproach. Land reform in Rome was desperately needed as the rich bought up the land of poorer farmers, most of whom spent enormous amounts of time away from home in the Roman legions. As those now landless men increasingly became members of the poor collecting in Rome, something needed to be done to change the situation, even if it meant taking a certain amount of land from the rich and giving it back to the farmers. This should not be seen as "Communist." It should be seen as the rectification of a major problem started by the greedy, greed which traditional Roman patriotism wouldn't have created in the first place as any rich patricians wouldn't have bought up the land of those who served their country militarily, leaving those people essentially homeless upon their return to Rome. As Tiberius grew more aggressive in trying to make this necessary reform happen, the Roman Senate, bound by their own traditions apart from the masses, moved to squash it by manipulating Gracchus' Tribunal colleague into vetoing his proposals. At this point, tradition and policy take over as the Senate digs in and Tiberius, through his role as a Tribune, destroys precedent and has his colleague in the Tribal Assembly, who offered the veto, removed. Tiberius breaks further tradition by running for Tribune for an unprecedented third time. The Senate's response these tradition breaking actions? Making up a reason why Gracchus wanted to be a dictator and eventually killing him and his followers.
SO MUCH of that drama has repeated itself, granted in slightly different ways, with populist "man of the people" Trump opposing the American establishment, namely Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat controlled House and the Democrat controlled Senate with the collaboration of Neocon Mitch McConnell and his cabal of associates including Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn and Mitt Romney.
So where are the parallels? The first upset in American political history is the rise of Andrew Jackson, a man greatly opposed by both the Founding generation and the then establishment led by people like House Majority Leader Henry Clay. Jackson, in Trump-like fashion, became a populist hero, earning the undying support of millions of Americans and riding that popularity to victory in, essentially, three elections (the one in 1824 was notoriously stolen from him.) So, early on, we have a precedent of a populist like Gracchus and later Trump throwing a monkey wrench into the plans of the then establishment. What follows is the Age of Jackson, where (white male) America spreads to the West Coast and rises as a world power.
At this point, I'm largely going to gloss over the Civil War. Yes, it is THE great political upheaval in American history but it is very different than the situations between Jackson/Trump and the Founders/Clay/Pelosi and McConnell. Northern and Southern America had become two different civilizations by 1861, separated along the lines by slavery and other vast cultural differences. The war was fought after the South seceded and became its own country, therefore that conflict can be seen as a war between two different nations. Neither the Confederacy nor the Union were bound by any laws to support the other side at that point. So we move on past this point.
The US post Civil War is one beginning to integrate its freed slave population into the general populace, a process which, IMO, has irreparably destroyed its civilization, not because integration is unjust (it isn't) but because black and white Americans refuse to get along and that has irrevocably divided the country for good. In short, Americans on both sides of the fence refuse to integrate properly. BUT I DIGRESS from my narrative for that personal opinion! So, other than the bumps in the road of America's racial problems, the American establishment has largely gotten along well enough to lead us into 2015. The Pelosi and McConnell wings oppose each other politically but are generally good friends away from Congress. Politics is often a blood sport but, for most of the 20th Century, firebrands in politics were few and far between and no real Jacksonian level figure had emerged...
...and then a certain gentleman rides down an escalator. At first, the establishment is amused. After all, Trump is a man they know, a man of enormous public voice and power via his wealth, and it's not like he has a chance of actually winning!! He's one of them, the establishment says, and life will continue as smoothly as ever once his sideshow quickly passes. BUT suddenly something happens. Trump, instead of opting to kiss the ring of Mitch McConnell and literally rub elbows with Nancy Pelosi as he does, goes into a completely opposite direction. Trump, like Gracchus, sees problems with America and Trump, like Gracchus, decides to go to the people the establishment ignores, "the masses," as a way of seeking power by bypassing the traditions of the established order. That establishment reacts just as the Roman Senate and the American Senate/House of Henry Clay and Co. reacted. That Trump is a dangerous man to the Republic and must be stopped at all costs. Suddenly, virtually that entire establishment responds like never before in my lifetime (born in 1973.) Politicians on both sides attack and denounce him. The media goes from his fawning toadies to his deadly enemies, making up fake story after fake story in the desperate attempt to stop him, a process beginning in 2016, motoring through the Russia collusion lie and into the present. Trump responds to this like both Tiberius Gracchus and his brother, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus. A blood feud erupts between he and his populists vs. the established order (the Roman Senate/American Congress.) The nightmare scenario is completed in 2016 as Trump wins the Presidential election. Now, as Tiberius Gracchus was an elected official causing trouble for his Senate, Trump is an elected official causing trouble for his Senate/House. Both Tiberius and Gaius (even more extreme and hateful of the Roman Senate than his brother) need to go. There can be no negotiations or peaceful resolutions. The Roman Senate responds by murdering Tiberius Gracchus literally then later murders his brother both politically then literally. The American Senate/House responds by murdering Trump's reputation and public standing, thus murdering him politically. (And, honestly, there also isn't one person in that establishment that didn't want a random American citizen killing Trump literally.) Thousands of followers of both Tiberius and Gaius are also murdered in the Roman Senate's attempt to "cleanse" the political scene. Hundreds of influential voices in the Trump movement are purged on social media and constantly (and often unfairly) attacked in the mainstream press, the mechanisms that hold the keys to public perception in any democracy, thus also murdering them politically. Thus, Trump and the followers of Trump are murdered by the establishment in the eyes of the people, the people being the ones who vote to give others power.
So IMO this is A Gracchi moment in American history. HOWEVER, because of the establishment media's stranglehold on public perception (and that's not hyperbole), there's a better than average chance that the average American won't even see it!! 🤣🤣🤣 Politicians have been burying their misdeeds, ranging from lies and manipulations to worse, for thousands of years. No one did it better than the Romans and the current American establishment is doing its best to emulate that behavior. What the mainstream power establishment (political and media) wants to do is just sweep the Trump years under the rug. The followers of Nancy Pelosi and the Fox News Neocons will eventually just pretend the Trump years didn't happen. In Democrat circles, he'll be a great boogeyman like the constantly invoked Hitler. "We don't talk about that creature or those years" will be the refrain, much like the Emperor Augustus didn't want to talk about his early political years where he proscribed thousands of wealthy Romans, leading to their murders and a seizure of their properties. The Lindsey Graham/Paul Ryan Fox News Republican will also sweep these years under the rug as a "time when we lost the better angels of our nature" and other mountains of self-righteous rhetoric. American textbooks will be manipulated to portray Trump as both Hitler and a Satanic figure. However, what those groups can't sweep under the rug is that the Trump years ACTUALLY happened and no amount of purging from the ranks of American history textbooks can change that. He didn't seize power. He was CHOSEN for it by the people. So why did it all happen and what happens from here? I've stated several times how the traditional establishment feels but there are many who will remember the Trump years fondly as a time when the common man/woman took on the rich, traditional aristocratic oligarchy and actually won for a time.
My conclusion as a college history graduate? The Roman Republic eventually fell and became the Empire, the rule of one, but I don't see it happening in the United States, at least not as a result of Donald Trump. The Romans were male dominated and valued the dictatorial spirit of military conquest and might making right above all else. By its very nature, it was ripe to eventually fall to one man who could defeat all his competitors (Julius Caesar) like a player in a tournament. The American Republic is much more complicated than the Roman Republic due to its integrated racial diversity and the impact of women in power positions. Yes, we have an infuriating aristocratic oligarchy who are, essentially, a cabal of kings and queens that operate in the perceived holistic bubble of being more than one person. Only in the hands of one person is a dictatorship seen. For thousands of years, parliaments of nobles have ruled "non-dictatorships" in the fashion of dictatorial minorities and the reaction of our establishment to Trump proves we're no different. The people elected Trump? SCREW THE PEOPLE! We, the aristocratic few, are in charge. We don't like him so he has to go. Screw what you want! They painted Trump as a dictator but was it so? Was Trump a dictator trying to conquer a wonderful, positive, essentially good establishment (as they claim) or a freedom fighter trying to bring a corrupt Uniparty who largely ignores regular people to account? THAT will be the argument for real historians. The current Joe Biden establishment has fake historians kissing its ass and telling it what it wants to hear but it's all much more complicated than that and real historians will eventually dig into the Trump years like a banquet feast to study how it all went down. IMO, due to media control (and they know it), Donald Trump was A Gracchi moment but it isn't THE Gracchi moment. His time as President proves he wasn't a dictator and the reaction to him was far worse than anything he did. In trying to smear and destroy a man they considered without honor, the traditional power establishment did the most dishonorable things possible.
Thank you for reading this far!
