First They Came for the Samnites

Sulla broke republican norms in an attempt to make Rome great again, paving the road for Julius and Augustus to later end the Roman Republic.

Sulla had purges, starting with the most vulnerable. People didn’t join together to stop Sulla until it was too late, hoping that Sulla would stop after Sulla was done persecuting other groups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh4LLvpr-7g

Cato, the Filibuster, and the Death of the Republic

Cato helped end the Roman Republic by abusing the norms of the Roman Senate to make it impossible to pass legislation. Senators today do something similar, which, rather than stopping the use of power, just incentivizes other branches to execute it with their own wills, further bending the norms of U.S. democracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgD3_eBBn5o

The Fall of the Roman Republic and the Fall of the American Republic: Sources

Donald Trump On Paying Supporter’s Legal Fees Meet The Press. 3 14 2016. NBC News. A look back at Trump comments perceived by some as inciting violence Libby Cathey and Meghan Keneally. 5 30 2020. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/back-trump-comments-perceived-encouraging-violence/story?id=48415766 Presidents Have Declared Dozens

Our Caesar Can the country come back from Trump? The Republic already looks like Rome in ruins.

“in so many ways, ancient Rome is profoundly different from the modern U.S. It had no written constitution; it barely had a functioning state or a unified professional military insulated from politics. Many leaders were absent from Rome for long stretches of time as they waged military campaigns abroad. There was no established international order, no advanced technology, and only the barest of welfare safety nets.
But there is a reason the Founding Fathers thought it was worth deep study. They saw the destabilizing consequences of a slaveholding republic expanding its territory and becoming a vast, regional hegemon. And they were acutely aware of how, in its final century and a half, an astonishing republican success story unraveled into a profoundly polarized polity, increasingly beset by violence, shedding one established republican norm after another, its elites fighting among themselves in a zero-sum struggle for power. And they saw how the weakening of those norms and the inability to compromise and mounting inequalities slowly corroded republican institutions. And saw, too, with the benefit of hindsight, where that ultimately led: to strongman rule, a dictatorship.”