The Coming Civil War Part II, and a (Possible) American Caesar

“Who the hell is Julius Caesar?  You know I don’t follow the N.B.A.” – Anchorman 2

This is Pompey, the opponent of Julius Caesar.  Yeah, there’s no second place in history for “nearly became emperor.”  Thankfully, there was first place for “widest head in history” which he won, hands down.  I mean, seriously, how could this guy buy glasses?

Last week’s post was the first prediction about the coming future of the United States.  You can read it here (The Coming Civil War (United States), Cool Maps, and Uncomfortable Truths) and another good post about the life of empires is here (End of Empires, PEZ, and Decadence).  Breakup was the first, and in my mind, still the most likely scenario.  But it isn’t the only one – there is at least one other possibility worth considering.

As I referenced in the post, there was a moment where Julius Caesar stood upon the banks of the river Rubicon and thought about his future.  As he looked at the shallow river he considered the orders from Rome:  at the banks of the Rubicon he was to turn over command of all of his legions.  Julius had four legions under his command in his conquest of Gaul.  But as he stood on the banks of the Rubicon, only the 13^th Legion (Legio XIII, Gemina, or “Twins”) was at his back.

Caesar at the banks of the Rubicon.  Some say he thought weighty thoughts about how he could best govern Rome.  I wonder if he was thinking about what was on TV, or if Brutus accepted his Facebook friend request?

To cross without them would, he feared, most certainly end with him being tried for political crimes (mainly the crime of being more popular than the sole remaining counsel, Pompey).  To cross without the army, then, might mean that his long career for the Roman Republic would end in dishonor.  In Gaul alone, his legions had faced over three million men, killed a million of them, and enslaved a million more – not a record that generally leads to disgrace, but a record that still irritates the French 2000 years later.

Legend recounts that as Caesar decided to cross the river and conquer Rome, as his horse’s hooves went into the shallow Rubicon he said, alea iacta esto, or, in a less-metric language, “Let the die be cast.”  And it was a gamble – he was outnumbered.

Caesar’s refusal to be a political pawn set him up to do what no other man on Earth could do – he conquered the most powerful nation on Earth.  He transformed the Roman Republic after a civil war, and created the Roman Empire with him as the leader.  The Roman Republic would never again exist.

At the time of Caesar’s ascension to becoming “dictator for life,” Rome had become a Republic ruled by a small number of families, including the Bushes and Clintons those of Pompey and Cicero.  Historian Adrian Goldsworthy writes in his book Caesar, Life of a Colossus (p. 378), that, “The Republic had become dominated by a faction who ignored the normal rule of law and particularly refused to acknowledge the traditional powers and rights of the tribunate.”

The empire that Caesar helped create removed the instability of the late Republic, and replaced it with a more stable structure that lasted another five hundred years.

Here is a painting of Vercingetorix, a chieftain who united the Gauls, throwing down his arms at Caesar’s feet.  This was painted in the 1890’s in France, and there are numerous historical inaccuracies in the painting.  Among them:  it’s unlikely that Vercingetorix would have had such a stupid mustache, and Caesar always had his iPhone® at surrenders listening to “We Are the Champions” by Queen on a loop in his earbuds.

The transition from Republic to Empire was completed within 20 years’ time.  Caesar put all of the rules in motion for his last name to become a title – the Roman emperors became Caesars.  The title followed to the German king – Kaiser and the Russian Emperor – Czar.  Think about that – your last name becoming synonymous with being an emperor for 2,000 years . . . “Wilder John the First” has an awesome ring to it, right?

But this is the other possibility for the United States:  whereas breakup into multiple states is likely the longer we go, there is still the possibility of an American Caesar, especially if the crisis is within the next 10 years or so while some shred of commonality can be forced upon us.  Sure, we won’t call him (or, much much much much much much less likely, her) “Caesar.”  We’ll probably call them “President” and pretend that the “for duration of the (endless) emergency” part doesn’t exist.

If we have a female American Caesar, she will probably look like the picture above.  Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite.  Oh, wait, she does bite.  And that’s not autographed to me – I found this one on the Internet.

And notice that I said forced.  The way we get to an American Caesar is through crisis – real or invented.  A currency one would do just fine, and I’ve pointed out that a currency crisis is inevitable here (Rome, Britain, and Money: Why You Can’t Find Fine China after the Apocalypse) and here (More Budget Doom, The Rolling Stones, an End Date, and an Unlikely Version of Thunderstruck), it would certainly bring the “need” for a strong, popular leader to take the role of power to save us all.  We almost ended up with one in 1932, but thankfully FDR gave out as World War II was nearing completion – if it had been a younger, more physically fit man?  Yeah, it scared the heck out of America.  That’s why we had a two term limit in place for Presidents before Roosevelt’s corpse was cool.

History shows that people give up freedom to someone who makes promises.  Napoleon, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, and well, here’s the map from Freedom House.  Most of the world’s population lives under what would be considered a dictator.  Very little freedom.

But never in the United States.  Why not?

• Historically, the United States has been driven by a core desire for individual freedoms and liberty. Those freedoms and liberties were specifically written into the Constitution, despite several politicians of the day noting that no government would EVER try to take these freedoms away.  The Bill of Rights has been a firewall against government power.
• Separation of powers is another key. The President can’t make laws, only Congress.  The President can just refuse to sign them.  And the Supreme Court has the ability to call into question the Constitutionality of all of those laws (Jefferson argued the President had those powers as well).  These divided powers were intended to prevent the Federal government from acting unjustly.
• As a further (and much stronger) barricade against tyranny, the states had significant power: they appointed Senators.  Without the Senate, no new law could be made.  The states further had delegated to them all powers not specifically granted to the Federal government.

But those are weakening.

• The Supreme Court has made decisions that create new categories of rights of people to have stuff (the old Bill of Rights prevented government from doing things, not granting people rights to stuff). And recent rulings generally allow the government to do pretty much what it wants in most cases.  We’ve gone from a limited Federal government to a Federal government that can choose the size of your toilet tank and define what features you MUST buy if you buy a new car.
• Separation of powers is eroded. Congress writes the laws, but bureaucrats from government agencies run by the President write the regulations that implement those laws.  Page after page of regulation.  81,000 in 2015.  Stack one atop the other?  A three story building’s worth of paper.  With that many regulations, everyone is guilty.  Everyone has done something wrong.  To go back to a Roman, Tacitus:  “The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
• States in the United States are little more than counties since Senators become popularly elected. Senators are just Representatives (Congressmen) with longer terms, and they don’t represent the states at all.

So, the stage is set – a collapse of the walls that kept a dictator from gaining power.  Now all that’s needed is a set stage.  As I mentioned above, a significant crisis will set that stage.  Maybe it’s actual civil war, as noted in the previous post, which is driven almost entirely by economic difficulties.  People don’t fight in civil wars if they the major problem they have is whether to go to the mountains or on a cruise for vacation.  Civil wars happen when people have nothing left to lose.

And when people have nothing left to lose, Caesar will (possibly) emerge.  You won’t look at him like he’s the bad guy.  Political lines will disappear.  I was watching the Netflix® remake of Lost in Space.  Not bad, but there was one scene that was so unintentionally silly I laughed out loud.

Space eels were drinking the space fuel that the space ship needed to move away from being crushed.  Plus, the space eels looked like they could kill people, too.  The husband went down to the ship’s 3D printer to print out a gun to save the family from the space eels.

Mom had the codes to the printer, and it wouldn’t print out a restricted item (gun) unless she said it was okay.  Then she harangued her retired Marine husband that guns weren’t necessary to fight the space eels.

Okay, you can have staunch anti-gun principles, but the second a space eel is going to eat your kids?  You print a dozen guns.

Your priorities change immensely after three days without food.  You’d be just happy to have a strong leader who will protect you.  A leader who will feed you.  And you won’t worry so much if you can’t criticize him, especially if you have food.

There was some comment that the maps from the previous post didn’t show the great amount of land that Trump won during the last election.  Here’s a different version, represented by area.  Future battle map for a new Caesar?  Asking for a friend.

You’ll look at him like he’s saving you, which he just might be doing.  He’ll have songs written about him.  And if he does a good enough job?  He’ll be remembered for 1,000 years.  If he does a bad enough job, he’ll be remembered that long, too.

When (if) he rises to power?  You’ll applaud.