Neither Julius Ceaser nor his fellow Romans could have grasped the full implications for the republic of his decision to cross the Rubicon. Roman citizens could not have conceived of the republic’s collapse and all that was associated with it — the ancient liberties of free speech and private property, a thousand years of self-government and the rule of law itself. If the restoration of the republic proved equally elusive, the explanations for its demise have found a measure of agreement. Gibbon has famously written, “The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is dominated by the executive.”
Has America, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, approached the banks of its own Rubicon? The extraordinary concentration of power in the hands of Trump, facilitated by the acquiescence of the Supreme Court and the Republican-controlled Congress, is pregnant with menace. Trump’s assertion of “absolute power,” which has been detailed, critiqued and criticized in this space, has reduced the judicial and legislative branches to the role of spectator, as it has launched the executive on a trajectory of unchecked, unfettered power. In cold terms, to borrow from Gibbon, the principles of our free Constitution have been torn asunder by Trump’s authoritarian model.
The erosion of America’s republic was a focal point of the remarks of Fiona Hill, a preeminent international relations scholar and former national security adviser, at The Alturas Institute’s annual conference, “Conversations with Exceptional Women,” held in Sun Valley. Hill, a keynote speaker at the event, had been on a phone call with European officials earlier that morning before participating in an onstage interview, in which she offered a sobering appraisal of a global system in flux and threats to America’s democracy.
Hill drew attention to the collapse of the Roman Republic, as she lamented the erosion in the United States of the great pillars of our nation, including the institutions that have preserved constitutional government and the rule of law. The dismantling of the federal government under Trump, whether measured in terms of the struggle that veterans endure to receive healthcare or, more recently, his “dusting” of the postal service for his own ends, reflects the growing consensus among scholars that “the center” no longer holds. This federal failing, Hill noted, while alluding to the nation’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, suggests a return to an era in which states must manage their own affairs from the bottom up.
In welcome words, Hill asserted, as a remedy, the power of Americans to act as “citizens,” and all that the distinctive title, with its great legal and political status, implies. Americans must end their preoccupation with themselves as “consumers of the state,” waiting for someone else to solve their problems. The “fixes” for all the problems confronting our nation — adequate healthcare system and affordable housing, among others — won’t necessarily come from Washington, but can come from Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Boise, Missoula, Casper, Sioux Falls and places in between.
This column has insisted that great ideas and practical solutions can emerge from the creative thinking and popular discourse of concerned citizens, no matter where they live. Justice Louis Brandeis wrote enthusiastically about the virtues of federalism, the idea that states are “laboratories” for introducing and testing programs and policies which, if proved to be helpful and successful, can be shared with other states across the country.
It is imperative at this juncture in our nation’s history, when “we citizens” observe the failings in Washington — the refusal to engage in genuine compromise to address the deep-seated problems that sap the quality of our lives, and threaten the lives of generations to come, the unwillingness to confront Big Government, as embodied in an authoritarian presidency, and the decline in support of our fundamental rights and liberties — for Americans to rise and fix things ourselves. We can employ the ideas and ingenuity of common, ordinary citizens, folks who have achieved in life because of hard work, determination, imagination and grit, like those who formed “the Greatest Generation,” and solve the problems that have slowed our progress and undermined the American Dream. Americans should embrace genuine discussion and debate as the motor of democracy, through a commitment to civic life that seeks to fulfill the words of the Pledge of Allegiance — “justice and liberty for all” — and stop a crossing of the Rubicon.