Saturday, September 8, 2018

Worst case scenario for America

Meghan McCain at the memorial service for her father John McCain:
"We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness"
Prophetic indeed.

One should always be careful in using historical parallels to predict the future. As said earlier, despite the parallel development of civilizations on the large scale, this is not a law, and above all, the details can vary considerably, both because of the distinct character of each civilization and because unique decisions and specific developments can have a large impact.  This said, the parallels between America today and the Roman Republic in the last 100 years before Augustus (130 - 30 BC) begin to look frightening. Before I turn to these, I will mention three important dissimilarities:
- It is unlikely that we will see violence on the same scale as in Rome.
- We will not as in Rome see political leaders with private armies.
- Thus the conflicts will not be fought militarily understood as fights between regular armies.

The similarities that do exist, can be seen in several fields. Here three important aspects.

1) Violence
Rome degenerated into outright civil wars lasting most of the 100 years up to 30 BC. As said, this is unlikely in the case of the United States. But violence on a smaller scale is likely. Generally spoken, actions violating the spirit of the Constitution and extreme and polarized decisions will lead to bitter counteractions, and when power shifts, to opposite extreme decisions. The resulting bitterness can lead to violence.

When I talk about violence, it is not in the sense of ridiculous conspiracy theories. Obviously the Democrats will not start a new civil war or use violence if they win the next midterm elections. The only political leader tending in this direction is Trump, who in certain cases may be tempted to use a mob to intimidate opponents.

But what we begin to see now are self-started mobs demonstrating and disturbing political procedures. This was seen under the beginning procedure to appoint a further conservative Supreme Court judge, an act which in itself is a provocation against the liberals and against the Constitution.

 But it can be feared that later, maybe after a decade or two, other political leaders than Trump may begin to command violent mobs. How far this will go is difficult to say. But one can fear ugly scenes in a country  which gets torn by anger, and where the population is armed....

2) Mutually opposing institutions
The Roman constitution was a complicated mixture of  different positions of power like Senate, Peoples Assembly, Consuls and  Peoples Tribune, some having been added at new situations in history demanding a share of power to new societal forces. Together such institutions secured an intricate system of checks and balances like the American Constitution. Both systems of balance and mutual control were admirable and both constitutions functioned reasonably well for a couple of centuries. But at a certain time the tensions in society and the polarization between people from the two major political parties Peoples Party / Democrats and Senate Party / Republicans became too big. The tension and polarity could not any longer be channeled through and within the means of the Constitution. This happened in Rome around 130 BC and in America around 2000.

At this point different institutions of the state risk to be monopolized by one party while others try to remain neutral controls, and again others are used by the other party. They make opposing decisions and try to obstruct each other. This increases societal and political tensions further. This process began in Rome from around 130 BC and is now increasingly clear in the United States. The White House and the Republican right have their extreme agenda, the neutral FBI try to carry on its duties, Congress may soon be run by Democrats, Supreme Court will be taken over by conservatives etc. Such developments can be expected to continue and worsen and create much bitterness on the street and between the parties. Politicians will use drastic means to get and keep control of institutions and positions and to seize them from other politicians.

  3) Divisions between the states
The Republic of Rome with its possessions was in practical terms often functioning very un-centralized, not least because the leaders of provinces were behaving as if the provinces were their private property. In case of conflicts between these men, the provinces were de facto run independently, and their troops fought each other.

 American states are not the property of their governors. But politically seen the states are quite autonomous.  This can be seen as another part of the system of checks and balances. In the case of disagreements with decisions from Washington this has tended to lead to the states partly following their own ways disregarding central orders. This will be increasingly likely if shifting leaders in Washington issue extreme and mutually contradicting decisions. We are already seeing examples of such increased opposition and denial of obeying Washington now under Donald Trump.

Separatism as such is unlikely (no Ecotopia), but states will de facto follow quite independent policies when they disagree with or feel disturbed by decisions from a chaotic center. Federal police may be used to force states to obey.

In sum, instead of checking and balancing each other, the different institutions and states will try to overrule and obstruct each other. In the worst case scenario we could see an America with different centers of power, each doing different things. Different institutions and different states carrying out different policies and a Washington with chaotic power-struggles and radically different policies substituting each other.

Increasingly, leaders using the voters or mobs as instruments will dominate over  and reduce the parties to mere groups of followers. The Republicans are already showing signs of this. Periods of de facto dictatorship may be seen.

In a such future the conflicts, the chaos and the incoherence may tempt the military to contemplate seizing power, not so much because of the power in itself, but to create order and to let the country regain outward strength. As opposed to some politicians parts of the military and the intelligence agencies know that the United States do not operate in a self-sustained vacuum.

These developments offer sad prospects for the people of the United States, who will suffer under instability, violence and misgovernment. It could also be dangerous for the world because foreign policies will be unpredictable and because internal conflicts can be sought channeled outwards or overcome through external actions against common enemies. Still, as said earlier, the US position in the world will suffer. Hence the only beneficiaries from a thus declining America could be its enemies. As said in other posts, a major difference between America and Rome is that the Romans had no serious competitors and therefore could be torn apart by internal conflicts without loss of position in their world. Some US politicians behave as if the same was the case for America.

The sketched developments may continue several decades and eventually end with a permanent and hereditary dictatorship  under leaders euphemistically called something like for example Supreme President.