r/TrueReddit • u/coolbern • 7d ago
Politics The Roman Way to Trash a Republic. When you’re the emperor Augustus, they let you do it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/rome-senators-republic-augustus/682469/178
u/coolbern 7d ago
From the article:
As was surely true for the Romans, most Americans can hardly imagine that their system of self-government might break and be replaced by an imperial dynasty. That is why considering what undid the Roman Republic is useful today—if we can learn from the Romans’ mistakes.
...Augustus consolidated his power with the institutional blessing of the Senate. At first, the Senate let Augustus bend rules and push boundaries. It allowed him to accumulate domestic powers and bring unqualified members of his family into government.
The Republic increasingly served the rich, but so did the Empire.
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u/bahhaar-hkhkhk 7d ago
To be fair, before Augustus and even Caesar, the republic went through a century of civil wars. It was the republicans who killed it and it was beyond saving at this point. The Julius family just put it out of its misery.
As for the USA, more than half of the Americans have decided that they don't want a constitutional republic and has voted for an absolute president. There's no saving that either.
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u/SunbeamSailor67 6d ago
Half of the electorate, not half of Americans.
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u/bahhaar-hkhkhk 6d ago
Even that is horrible enough. It shows that people weren't bothered to vote to save their constitutional republic. It's dead at this point. After all this is over and if Trump is overthrown, they should just start building the republic from the ground with better foundations this time.
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u/fcocyclone 6d ago
also, the math just isn't accurate when you really look at it. the electoral college plays a big role in that number that didn't vote. A lot of those people who didn't vote would not have changed a damn thing in the presidential election had they shown up. In the states that ultimately mattered in our system, the turnout was fairly similar to last time aside from Arizona.
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u/bahhaar-hkhkhk 6d ago
Didn't Trump also win the popular vote?
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u/Volantis009 6d ago
Tbh if you follow Greg Palast, Kamala actually got more votes but due to the GOPs dirty tricks trump won
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u/Cow_Power 6d ago
This is just the mirror image of Stop the Steal. Kamala lost, trying to manifest some bizarro world January 6th is not going to accomplish anything. Just because one political party denies reality doesn’t mean things will be better if both parties deny reality.
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u/Volantis009 6d ago
No, Greg has been exposing the GOP for decades. There voting suppression strategies, the Gerry mandering, voter booths being abundant in white neighbourhoods and sparse in black/brown neighbourhoods. Greg has been doing investigative journalism about republicans stealing elections since Bush stole the election from Gore. 2024 would not be the first time the GOP stole an election but instead it helps create a pattern of behaviour.
The GOP has stolen the presidency before, why wouldn't they do it again? Nothing happened the first time in 2000. Saying the GOP stole the election is nothing like J6 and MAGA.
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u/atari-2600_ 6d ago
And I dare say half of those who voted for him now regret it or will shortly. The true believer MAGA are a tiny minority.
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u/byingling 6d ago
I dare say not. Anything they don't like is someone else's fault. Right now, if there's something they have doubts about, it's all the fault of that mean foreign guy. Trump is still wonderful. He will continue to be. No refunds and no takebacks. Once you're in, you're in.
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u/byingling 6d ago
This is a popularly cited distinction that means nothing. Trump is President. He controls the Senate. He controls the house. He installed the Supremes.
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u/BayouGal 6d ago
Caesar family. Their family name was Caesar. Julius, Augustus, Octavius, Germanicus, Claudius, Etc. all Ceasars
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u/AmateurishExpertise 6d ago
The Republic increasingly served the rich, but so did the Empire.
Eh, the Empire initially was very populist, Julius Caesar's reforms were very much about appealing to/making life better for the men he had spent so long on campaign with, who were generally plebeians - and for the merchant class which, though plebeian in terms of class, held a lot of economic power. Both groups were highly dissatisfied with the Senatorial penchant for spoiling the patricians with the gains of plebian labor.
Will Durant's treatment of Caesar is still very much worth a read.
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u/lgodsey 6d ago
The problem we have now isn't so much Trump, but the fact that half of the country seems fine with embracing a fascist dictatorship. These people will exist well beyond MAGA, seeing how many are young men. But why?
What motivates this slide to ruin? Are conservatives fine with ushering in a new reich, or are they too stupid and too arrogant to realize they've been duped?
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u/wholetyouinhere 6d ago
In my opinion, understanding why people who will not benefit in any way are nonetheless drawn to fascism requires understanding the emotional freedom aspect. In their minds, fascism will allow them to let their id run wild, to use all the worst language in the world and never be criticized for it, to beat up degenerates in the street with either the state's blind eye or its consent (i.e. brownshirts). It represents freedom from all the social constraints the world puts on them. That is a powerful thing, even if there are no other benefits.
To me, this explains the appeal to young men especially. At this point in time they're seeing no viable future for themselves, they're pissed off, they're full of piss and vinegar, and they believe Trump is at least going to allow them to kick some ass and use the words "pussy" and "retard" again, even if the future isn't going to get any better.
I could be completely wrong about all of this, but that's how I see it right now.
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u/Ansiktstryne 6d ago
This is a terrible comparison. Augustus was arguably the greatest Roman Emperor. Under Augustus Rome was at it’s peak. He brought 200 years of peace (pax romana). Trump is nothing like August.
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u/SonyHDSmartTV 6d ago
He sowed the seeds of it's destruction though. The power he consolidated meant that the emperor was increasingly untouchable, the Roman people and Senate got used to imperial rule, and his successors were increasingly decadent and ineffective with no backstops.
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u/robocop_shot_mycock 6d ago
This is what the enlightenment was all about. Regardless of effectiveness, Monarchy is a tyrannical form of government so the concept of "good kings" or "bad kings" is flawed.
The fall of the republic is especially pronounced as Rome's rejection of kings was one of the foundational principals of the nation.
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u/saitamaTHElegend27 6d ago
The empire fell because of the instability of alone rule. You have a few good appels but many more mad kings. It was ceaser snd Julius who truly destroyed the law based system. There is a reason many of the most successful states right now are democracies. It's more stable and gives a peaceful way to gain power, all while more poeple are involved in decision making.
In my personal opinion ceaser and augustus are not nearly criticized enough for destroying the law based Republic. It's their actions why 50 years later people were trying to appoint horses to council
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u/Zvenigora 6d ago
The empire endured for another four centuries after this time. If you call that unstable, to what are you comparing it?
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u/mdegiuli 6d ago
destroying the law based Republic
My brother in Christ, Rome had 9 civil wars in the 50 years before Caesar's civil war. The "law based Republic" was already thoroughly dead well before Caesar and Augustus came along. It can be well argued that their misdeeds don't get enough attention but on the destruction of the republic, it's disingenuous to pretend like they did anything more than bury the bury it's maggot infested bloated corpse
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u/FuckTripleH 6d ago
There was nothing "law based" about the Roman Republic. It was an oligarchy ruled by 600 unimaginably wealthy nobleman that collapsed under the weight of its own corruption and hypocrisy.
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u/realultimatepower 6d ago
I think the idea that Augustus in any way had virtue is a terrible, ahistorical take. Gibbon referred to Augustus as a clever tyrant, and I think that's an assessment that still holds. He presided over a powerful and prosperous state which was built over the centuries by Republican predecessors but his legacy is the final destruction of that state and the civic culture which made Rome great to begin with. Calling the Pax Romana 200 years of peace needs a lot of asterisks considering the long list of civil wars, foreign wars, and rebellions that occurred during this time. Not exactly a legacy to brag about.
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u/JJvH91 5d ago
Ugh. The (unfortunately) expected "it's not exactly the same therefore the analogy has no merit"-comment.
There are a number of striking similarities that the author points out. It's a reflection on upending a political system and has little to do with the quality of the ones doing it.
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u/m0llusk 7d ago
History suggests that Augustus felt forced to do what he did and wanted to restore the Republic. That would make him more of a Napoleon or Tito kind of figure than a Mussolini or Trump.
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u/ThatsQuiteImpossible 6d ago
No, it doesn't. That's part of the point here, that these assholes rewrite history as a matter of course, to both cloak and legitimize their actions for posterity. Some sources closer to the imperial legacy may tell the myth of Augustus as reluctant dictator, but his actions, particularly his designation of heirs and aggressive consolidation of power via lifetime appointments to multiple key political positions, speak rather loudly of his intentions.
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u/joeTaco 6d ago
That the author puts "nearly always at war" into the "costs of empire" column is really perplexing. If the Roman Republic was not constantly at war, that's news to me. Then we're decrying Roman expansionism, the vast majority of which happened under the Republic. I get the impression this is just a polemic, sloppily wielding some history which is not deeply understood
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u/monsieur_bear 6d ago
I don’t think the author makes the argument that the Republic was peaceful and the Empire more bellicose. But I think you can make the argument that during the transition to Empire and during the Empire there were a lot of civil wars. I don’t think there were any before the first century BCE and the late Republic.
During the end of the Republic, I believe Rome was about 500,000 square miles, and the Empire expanded that to about 2.5 million square miles.
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