Thread by @BretDevereaux

So I was listening to @ezraklein podcast with Jon Stewart & struck around the midpoint as they tried to get at anxiety & polarization.

It put me in mind of something re: the fall of the Roman Republic - 'the Republic' clearly meant different things to different Romans. 1/

At the beginning of my Rome course or my Rome unit in the anc. history survey, we lay out what the Roman Republic was in institutions (blog version of that here: ) and most students decide that 'the Republic' is a system of voting and office holding. 2/acoup.blog/2023/07/21/col…

And I actually try to push back, a little, on that early in class. Because surely that was what the Roman Republic was to some Romans. Presumably the Romans that voted Scipio Aemilianus to be consul, twice, over the objections of the Senate (and, uh, the law) thought so. 3/

Sulla clearly thought popular elections were The Republic he was saving, but not free speech and debate (given all the people he murdered) and certainly note the tribunate.

For Sulla, I'd say, the Republic was a system where the Senate decided and the People approved. 4/

The assassins of Caesar, the 'liberatores,' get almost no public support when they claim to have liberated the Republic (from Caesar, who to be clear, thought the Republic sucked; Caesar is the one clear anti-Republican in this story). 5/

I think that's because their vision of the Republic was different: the Republic for the liberatores was that elite men got to rise through the ranks, become consul and be - for a time - the most eminent men.

Caesar and his *open* mockery of the system, removed that. 6/

Note that the liberatores don't kill Caesar and then call fresh elections - they kill Caesar, but *confirm his appointments* so they can get on with their political careers, their road to the consulship, their plush provinces and commands.

That was 'The Republic' to them. 7/

Finally, Octavian. I think Octavian was 100% sincere when he claimed to have saved The Republic. And that tells you what he thought it was and what it wasn't.

He had no problem abolishing popular elections in his 'Republic.' 8/

Legislation and later elections were moved - but not to Augustus. Moved to the *Senate* (which he controlled, of course, this would be a Republic 'under management' as it were).

For Octavian/Augustus, 'the Republic' was the orderly meetings of the Senate...9/

...the regular holding of offices, which carried their traditional dignities (note he abandons the consulship to free it up and pointedly avoids Caesar's mockery of the traditional republican system). 10/

And the Republic was that system used to deliver things for the Roman People - note Augustus' careful attention to building programs, to the arts, to the annona (the grain dole), to the rights of citizens (trials, no torture, etc). 11/

That - the forms, the structure but *not* the popular sovereignty - was 'the Republic' to Octavian/Augustus and so when it came to 'saving the Republic,' that was what he saved. 12/

All of which is to say I think a core part of this current election is us asking, "What is the Republic?"

For some voters, 'the Republic' is free elections, freedom of speech, of the press, the apolitical military. Not hard to see which side they're on. 13/

But for other folks, 'the Republic' is a system that is supposed to deliver economic stability and prosperity in their lives and they're *really upset* that it didn't do that from 2020 to 2023 - instead, they got the COVID crash followed by inflation. 14/

For some folks 'the Republic' is a society that doesn't interfere much in their lives and their concerned that left-leaning nanny-state-ism wants to compel them to live differently than they do - make them get an EV, structure their family differently, talk differently. 15/

Of course, for other folks, 'the Republic' is *also* a society that doesn't interfere much in their lives (the United States is the most culturally individualist country on Earth), but they're afraid that *right*-nanny-state-ism is coming for their bodily autonomy. 16/

And finally, let's be honest: for some folks 'the Republic' is a system that keeps 'us' (typically white, straight Christian males) at the center of society while 'them' (women, minorities, LGBTQ folks) are kept to the fringes. They're mad they're not the default anymore. 17/

I don't think this election will resolve those competing visions, though I do think that Donald Trump, as a person, is a profoundly unhelpful individual to have at the center of them and we'd be better off litigating these divisions without him. 18/

But often, it seems to me, when we wonder 'how can someone vote that way - don't they know The Republic is at stake?' often the answer is that they have a different definition of what 'the Republic' is and it can be helpful to understand that. 19/

Of course, I have my own strong views about what 'the Republic' is - like most members of my socio-economic class, I see 'the Republic' primarily through representative, small-d democratic institutions....20/

...For me, the republic is, at its core, liberalism - by which I mean the liberalism of Locke and Jefferson, of the First Amendment and the preamble to the Declaration of Independence (). 21/acoup.blog/2024/07/05/col…

And I think without that version of 'the Republic,' you don't actually get most of the others (except the white-male-supremacist one; that one is incompatible with liberalism, which is why its proponents are so often now 'post-liberal' and seek to overturn the founding). 22/

And I'll keep arguing for that vision of 'the Republic' as a liberal system for compromising on our different visions of what a Good Society is.

But it is important to recognize that this is just one of many visions of what 'the Republic' is and can be. /end