Recently, I finished reading the last of “Dictator”, the third of Robert Harris’ trilogy nominally about the life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, but just as much about the collapse of the decaying Res Publica. The aim of Roman politicians was to gain power, or imperium. Few actually wanted to achieve anything, other than to put one over their “enemies” (any other Roman who was not helping them gain their power) or to gain the right to govern a province and get rich from the tithes they would impose. There were exceptions. Cato, and to a lesser extent, Cicero, wanted to maintain the “principles of the republic”, even if these were somewhat ill-defined and were bendable for convenience, while Gaius Julius Caesar genuinely wanted reforms, and was prepared to stamp down on the corrupt practices that he, too, had once engaged in.
In some ways, not a lot changes, although everything now is a lot milder. The vitriol slung between Trump and Clinton would be nothing for the times of the Res Publica. Trump said he would have Clinton investigated; Clodius was quite happy to organize a gang to beat a senator senseless. Even Pompey seemed to be almost afraid much of the time, but of course he obeyed the rules and disbanded his legions before returning to Rome. Caesar was not afraid, but then Caesar did not disband his legions, and he got assassinated.
I am always amused at the straw-clutching assertions made by the losing side. Thus we hear that Clinton won the popular vote. She did but that is irrelevant. About half the eligible population did not vote, and there are at least two possible reasons why not. One is, lack of interest. Another is that for many there is the feeling that if you are in a state that has no chance of changing, and you are in the minority, there is no chance your vote will matter, so why bother?.
Another thing that amuses me is the hand-wringing that went on after Trump won. Horrors! The sky was falling! If they were that concerned, why were they not out campaigning for Clinton? My personal view is that there were so many wild statements flung around during campaigning that we could conclude that such statements are necessary to win the election. If so, there could be a serious withdrawal from most of such statements by the winner.
So, is the sky falling? Is Trump going to be a total disaster, as some of the more noisy ones seem to assert? He won by making the most outrageous statements, but arguably that was what he had to do to win with the current voters. If that is true, then guess were the fault lies. But equally, if he is a man prepared to do whatever is required to achieve a goal, then he may very well retract from many of these positions when the goal is to be an effective president. I suppose we have to wait and see how much power Trump will actually have, but the American constitution is specifically designed to limit the power of any president. The president has to do deals with Congress, and even if Congress is majority Republican in both houses, during the election campaign it was clear that not all Republicans are going to back Trump no matter what. Further, Trump seems to be showing signs of dropping his most outrageous assertions.
I think it is far too early to guess what the Trump presidency will be like. My guess is the fight against global warming has not been done favours, although the US has signed the Paris agreement, and I doubt that will be revoked. Trump’s tax plan is similar to what Paul Ryan wants, so that may well get through. International trade may well suffer, and the US could hurt a country like New Zealand. However, whatever happens, the sky will not fall.
That raises the question, what would it take to bring America to its knees? Strictly speaking, it should be impossible, but there is one way: the bulk of the population cooperates in bringing it down. After all, that was why Rome fell. The average Roman decided that the Roman governance was worse than whatever the uncivilized masses could do, at least once the initial rape and pillage was over. So could anything like that happen now, in America? Of course not. However, if you want to have nightmares over something like that, on Dec 2 my ebook ‘Bot War is available, and if nothing else, it might show you how impossible it is. In this story, the general problem is not the terrorists and their robotic war machines, but rather the general population have no faith in their government. Is that lack of faith justified?
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