USSR fell in 1989, the climate in the US is a post-iraq thing and China is fiercely rivaling and competing against the US in all fronts. Even America's reaction to Russia bs Ukraine is tailored to send a message to China.

The Xenophobia in America is a walk in the park compared to any European country. Still the best place for immigrants. Income inequality is bad but povery has improved a lot and so has crime compared to previous decades. I mean, the great depression was literally before WW2 which is obviously a worse time than now (ask any black person or non-european immigrant how unequal or xenophobic America was back then!) after which there was a great economic boom.

Perhaps the past is easier to measure than the present?

A lot of the political norm that is being erased now is for 20th century norms. I would say Andrew Jackson shooting people on the whitehouse lawn was a norm. Congress attending Church every sunday at the Capitol was also a norm and it was erased.

I think a lot of people correlate without articulating causation to sound smart.

When do you think America's political divisions got so tribal? I couldn't tell.

The broadcast media stopped being the way a huge majority of people got their news starting in the 80s with cable. So the US returned to normalcy, with large portions of the population absolutely hating each other. The post civil war era was also abnormally amicable. Conservative Democrats found it easy to work with liberal Republicans and their constituents would still vote for them out of tribal/regional loyalties.

Hating the political opposition is the norm, not the exception.

> Hating the political opposition is the norm, not the exception.

Not in a healthy democracy, but I guess that is the exception as well.

Facebook launched its news feed feature in 2006, and set the stage for a generation of doomscrollers.

If you are optimizing for keeping eyes glued to screens to deliver more ads, people being hateful to each other is very engaging.

This certainly predates social media (tabloids, tabloid television), but social media definitely took things to a new level.

So, you don't think there was tribalism pre-2006? I'm just curious, do you remember that time? Was it much better then?

I ask because it seems like we have mostly the same politicians (McConnell, Pelosi, Biden, even Trump ran as an independent) as we did then.

I remember pre-2006. I was in my mid-30s by then. I don’t recall much open animosity between Republicans and Democrats. Certainly nothing like today. There was a lot of coming together post 9/11. I do think social media was the main instigator of the country falling into open tribalism.

I can't think of how to make a more constructive response, but I too remember pre-2006 (that really seems funny to say), and I'm just laughing at your response. The laughing isn't to ridicule it, I just think its truly funny how much I disagree. I guess back then it was talk radio that was blamed for stoking the animosity.

While the tribalism definitely existed back then the amount and openness in which it existed was so much less as to be categorically different. For example, people openly blaming one tribe or the other for some aspect of reality that doesn't even fall nicely along party lines wasn't just a fact of discourse back then like it is now.

post-9/11 coming together is an interesting confound. How to you disambiguate a reversion to a more tribal pre-9/11 nature from social media's influence?

The Republic didn’t fall because it ran out of enemies. It fell because the centre of Roman power was incredibly disconnected from the source of Roman power. The source of Rome’s power came from a small number of people who had extraordinary leadership and military command talents, who were able to win the victories required to expand Roman territory beyond the top half of the Italian peninsula. Yet the senate, responsible for wielding the power won by these generals, were just a bunch of aristocrats and demagogues, who routinely saw Rome’s most competent generals as their greatest threat. This tension exists for the entire republic era, and you could just as easily predict that Romans would have to start “looking inwards for power” after the Pyrrhic War.

The senate had a well established history of turning against its greatest generals by Caesar’s time. You mention the defeat of Carthage, but who defeated Carthage, and what happened to them afterwards? Scipio Africanus did at the Battle of Zama, and he was promptly exiled from Rome afterwards by his political rivals (and was lucky to avoid execution really). It is absolutely no surprise that the Roman republic eventually fell to an extremely competent general leading an extremely loyal army, after having the senate try to take him down a peg.

The major link in the chain that you're missing here is the breakdown in the elaborate series of checks-and-balances that underpinned the Roman Republic. For most of the Republic, the army consisted of a citizen militia commanded by military leaders whose terms measured months at most, not years. Even if they possessed "extraordinary leadership and military command talents," generals never spent years in the field with their soldiers. As Rome got bigger and wars became further-flung, you begin to see people in charge of armies for much longer which allowed them to build up the ironclad loyalty required to lead an army against Rome. Scipio Africanus is an early example, but this sort of thing became much, much more common in the late Republic.

I wholeheartedly disagree that those checks and balances actually did underpin the republic in any way. The senate always attempted the keep them in place, but always abandoned them in a crisis. The first Punic war was won by a dictator of Rome. The only thing that changed over time was the scale of the crises that Rome got itself into.

Those checks and balances were simply not needed during peaceful times, and consistently failed any time they were tested during conflict. It’s like how people say Athens never had the position of “dictator”, yet for every significant crisis Athens got into, it found itself ruled by a dictator.

I'm glad you brought up the Roman dictatorship, because it's a great example of the way checks and balances worked in the Roman Republic. There were nearly 100 dictators prior to the 2nd century B.C.E. - often appointed in times of crisis - and not a single one attempted to seize control of the state. There are probably a number of factors that led to this (the fact that dictators were only granted their powers within the realm for which they were appointed; the fact that dictators could only last 6 months at maximum; the fact that dictators couldn't legislate; the fact that the tribunes of the plebs were absolutely outside the authority of the dictator; etc. etc.)

> Those checks and balances were simply not needed during peaceful times

There weren't any peaceful times. Almost literally. Rome was at war for all but 6 years of the entire Republic.

Wasn't the dictator aspect built into their system though? I thought the point was that Rome felt dictators were needed in times of crises. I think the term was 6 months.

Is this analogous to the modern concept of martial law, perhaps, in today's democracies? Including the restrictions placed on them legislatively (albeit few)!

Partially, I'd say. It's been a while since I've read about it, but martial law is a suspension of normal restrictions on police actions. I'm not sure if there are other pieces involved.

A roman dictator on the other hand was anointed by the Senate to "get shit done" until the scourge was over or 6 months, whichever comes first. Normally in Roman times, they tended to shy away from single authority. Even the military was divided between two consuls so that if one got any funny ideas, the other could effectively repel their attack. During a dictatorship though, the anointed would have supreme authority over all things Roman. They could wield armies and the state coffers at their disclosure. This rarely happened and the senate really tried to only anoint people that were worthy of it.

Cincinatti, the capital of Ohio, is actually named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus who famously saved Rome twice. He was farming when he was anointed dictator and was very reluctant to stay in politics unless needed. It's a fantastic story.

All western democracies have these features today, and martial law would simply be one way in which they can be used. More broadly they would include basically any “emergency” powers that governments have to suspend ordinary democratic processes. If you look at the way the role of dictator worked in Rome, then most of the world has been run by legally appointed dictators for the past two years. With ordinary legislative processes suspended, public scrutiny and engagement in governance severely drawn back, and with new laws typically being announced via executive authority at press conferences rather than being debated and voted on by representatives. Factually these are what would be described as dictatorships. History is full of examples where dictators have temporarily assumed that level of power for the benefit of the people they’re governing, but the word is such a PR nightmare that no 21st century western dictator would ever accept the label.

There's perhaps some relationship, and of course "martial law" can have a wide variety of definitions under different political contexts, but I think it's worth pointing out that the Roman Republic worked pretty differently to most modern democracies despite some nominal similarities. Most of the executive offices of the Republic were extraordinarily weak by modern standards (and had more checks on them than their modern equivalents). This extended to the dictatorship which was really more akin to appointing a temporary executive with the power to run a single part of the government with fewer (but still some!) checks on their authority for a short period of time.

I don't know that much about the Roman Republic and Empire, but I think your commentary misses a few facts:

The Roman Republic, as a political entity, was able to muster enormous resources relative to its size, and in the midst of calamitious circumstances too. The best example is the Republic raising legion after legion with which to challenge Carthage, and maintaining the loyalty of all of the cities allied to it, after Hannibal's army had defeated it in a string of battles, and finally, killed a significant fraction of its male population at the battle of Cannae.

I assume it was the construction of the Roman government, with its elected leaders, and the political culture of the Roman polity, that viewed the people as the source of all power (as exemplified by SPQR), that inspired this cohesion and loyalty, and it was these qualities that were the primary and ultimate source of its power.

Roman generals in later centuries frequently seized power to become emperors, and this in turn undermined the basis of Roman power, which was a large subsection of the population and fraction of power centers being integrated into the political establishment through elected positions, and consequently having a stake in the success of the state. So the suspicion the elected leaders had towards generals may have been well-founded, and been the reason the elected government maintained power for as long as it did.

I don’t think Rome had a significant resource advantage over its enemies during the second Punic war. Carthage was very wealthy at that stage, benefitting massively from their conquest in Iberia.

It’s also a mistake to say that Rome inspired significant cohesion and loyalty. The only groups that remained loyal to Rome during the second Punic war were the northern Latin cities. Many cities in the south defected to Hannibal, a lot of the Gallic tribes that had peaceful arrangements with Rome took the opportunity to restart aggressions, Macedonia and many Greek states also took the opportunity to start various conflicts with Rome.

The characteristic of the senate that you could credit to some extent was that they would simply never surrender. That seems to be a very strong Roman cultural value during that period. Rome lost every battle it fought in Italy during the second war. After Cannae they had almost no army, and Hannibal took his army to Rome, and Rome refused to surrender, and Hannibal… left. Because he didn’t have the resources to besiege Rome, and Carthage hadn’t managed (and never did manage) to reinforce him. So he spent a around a decade in control of large areas in southern Italy, unable to fully defeat Rome, and Rome unable to evict him from the peninsula, and with no realistic prospect of ever being able to.

And they never did. Scipio Africanus removed Hannibal from Italy by first conquering Carthaginian Iberia, and then launching a campaign in Africa. This caused Carthage to recall Hannibal home, where he was subsequently defeated by Scipio, ending the war.

It’s also worth noting that Scipio’s campaign in Africa was not properly funded by Rome. His army had a large contingent of volunteers, and the campaign was mostly funded by his private supporters.

Had a 5th century Roman emperor refused to surrender, after suffering the losses the Roman Republic did in the Second Punic war, his generals and governors would have defected and seceded, respectively. Especially once that emperor tried to press more men into service after over 100,000 had already been killed by an invading force. The Senate was able to remain in power because of a cohesion that didn't appear to be present in rival states or the Late Roman Empire.

The fractious nature of Senate politics was a consequence of a culture and set of institutions that encouraged and allowed domestic conflicts to be settled within the confines of established political processes, so that the Senate as an institution, while often beset by bitter internal political strife, did not face challenges from external centers of power within Roman society. The power and resiliency that this gave the Senate allowed it to maintain control even when Rome was under extreme stress, like it was in its depopulated state during the Second Punic War when it managed to raise two dozen legions.

>>The only groups that remained loyal to Rome during the second Punic war were the northern Latin cities.

You're correct that there was a lot of defection, but most cities in the Italian peninsula remained loyal to Rome.

Your idea of a cohesive and loyal republic here seems to hinge entirely on the fact that the senate never surrendered, which isn’t nearly as remarkable as you’re making it out to be. Carthage didn’t surrender in the 3rd war either, but they were certainly not a highly cohesive entity at that stage.

During the second Punic war nearly half of the republic defected, and almost all Roman allies turned on them. Including a pro-Carthaginian uprising in Sardinia, and and outright defection of Syracuse to Carthage.

I guess you’re free to interpret things however you want, but “cohesive and loyal” is such an incredibly creative interpretation of the Roman republic during Hannibal’s invasion.

The Senate didn't surrender, and still maintained the loyalty of the wider governing apparatus that collected resources for its campaigns. To be able to raise two dozen legions after the losses suffered in the first three years of the Second Punic War, suggests to me an extraordinary level of social cohesion and stability of government rule.

I believe you are incorrect about the defections as well. One source supporting this notion is Adrian Goldsworthy's "The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265–146 BC", which, by way of Wikipedia, claims:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Punic_War#Hannibal_cros...

However, the majority of Rome's allies remained loyal, including many in southern Italy.

Immediately preceding the excerpt you chose to copy:

> Several of the city states in southern Italy allied themselves with Hannibal, or were captured when pro-Carthaginian factions betrayed their defences. These included the large city of Capua and the major port city of Tarentum (modern Taranto). Two of the major Samnite tribes also joined the Carthaginian cause. By 214 BC the bulk of southern Italy had turned against Rome.

Ray Dalio seems to think the opposite: that the US is in the falling Empire stages (think 3rd-4th century AD) where there is a lot of internal strife and the economy is stumbling. A new enemy is rising to challenge the existing superpower and the will to expand and fight is no longer there (Germanic tribes and the Sassanids for Rome, China for the US). I think peak US ala the Roman Republic would've either been right after WW2 or right after the USSR fell (Gulf War era basically).

I remember reading this theory a bit ago and I thought it was one of the more compelling observations. It depends on whether you're focusing on foreign or domestic politics, because both fit in various ways. When the republic fell to an empire, it was due more to domestic issues: the agrarian middle class was displaced by slave labor and mostly forced into professional military careers, and the very rich infought into conquering the state. The the empire fell (at least, the Western empire) it was foreign issues: the central state was over-extended and unable to hold the full Pax Romana territory any longer.

The useful lesson from the "falling Empire stages" is to gracefully cede influence without entering into counterproductive wars with new rising powers, as you mention with China.

That's a popular take, but I don't know how much it holds water.

What really does seem to be the sad, sad reality is that America needs external enemies or else it feeds on itself. Since the fall of the USSR politics have gotten steadily nastier, but all the sudden people are finding lots of common ground in solitary against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But will that solidarity last more than a few news cycles?

Dalio said without reservation or probability that at the start of COVID we were in a global depression. Oops, 100% wrong but no one cares.

IMO the entire narrative that Americans are so divided is largely an illusion. People are highly divided over wedge issues in online arguments.

If you turn off the internet, the phone and FOX/CNN/MSNBC people are pretty much the same.

Sporting events are a good example of reality. If the media narratives were true getting a 100k people in a sports stadium would result in utter chaos.

We are certainly not as divided as in the 60s. That is so apparent if you read any history from that time.

Actually, if we suffer from anything it is exactly represented by Dalio. Conflating extreme wealth accumulation with extreme intelligence and wisdom. The ideas of billionaires are given far too much weight. Not based on the ideas themselves but on the size of their net worth.

IMO if Feynman or Einstein were alive today no one would listen to them, "If you are so smart why don't you have a billion dollars???"

We have a little bit of a self-vision problem. Historically, America focused on conquering new frontiers: manifest destiny (with all the nastiness that includes), industrialization, the space race, computing. It's not really clear what the next national frontier will be, and a lot of the domestic politics are anchored more around the allocation of resources from past frontiers rather than the establishment of a new frontier. This is all orthogonal to external enemies like the USSR, which I just see as a relatively generic phenomenon; countries frequently unify around external enemies, and you're probably right that the current situation with the USSR won't have a very long-lasting effect.

Wow. I hope we can galvanize around something that is a real enemy (climate change, disease) rather than made-up stuff.

Wouldn't that be nice. Unfortunately we've got politicians with pockets to line. Progress would be antithetical!

After the cold war ended we had Iraq. And then the war on terror. War makes money.

I hear people say that our response to 9/11 shows that the terrorists won. I think actually bin Laden did a huge favor to the military industrial complex - they won.

>and so ambitious people started looking inward to gain power instead of outward. This led to a lot of political division and slow erosion of political norms.

On the other hand the narrative that America is going the way of Rome has been an ongoing thing since at least the 1950s, in different decades the thing that the person crafting the narrative felt was really bad became the cause of Rome's fall. I suppose it is a favorite to write about because Rome was a Republic once, and America is a Republic, and Rome fell and it was a big, big deal. So people can get really worked up over this idea.

Many of the 'causes' of the coming downfall have been bad morals in one way or another; narrative is that Rome fell because of its weakening moral fiber, so in the '50s this weakening was caused by miscegenation, in the 60s debauchery and emasculation of the younger generations, 70s the same and maybe just being tired out by the discipline required for maintaining empire, 80s homosexuality, I think 90s was emasculation of younger generations again although I think there was still quite a bit of gay panic then too.

So nowadays hmm, "ambitious people started looking inward to gain power instead of outward" oh yeah, putting personal ambition ahead of social duty, that's a recurring one, I think it was a common complaint in the 50s as well.

I mean I sure do think things are not that great, but not sure if I buy that there are any more actually relevant similarities between the fall of Rome and U.S than there are between the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations.

"The Roman Revolution" by Ronald Syme seems to have a good reputation, how does it compre with this.

https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Oxford-Paperbacks-No...

(Also posted as a top level comment.)