Funeral Dirge of the Republic

Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us

– 1 Samuel 19

I was loyal to my country and its ideals. I was true blue. I was aware that the Constitutional republic I served had committed atrocities during its history, but for all of its manifold faults, there had always been a drive to be better than we were, as well as a commitment to republican form of government. It often felt like one step forward, and two steps back, but I always figured that a country that couldn’t honestly reconcile itself to its past, warts and all, could never perfect itself. In my lifetime, at least, it looked like we’d finally begun a reckoning of sorts.

But then it started to rapidly fall apart, like a rocket on an apparently good trajectory suddenly wobbling and then disintegrating in spectacular fashion.

But this sort of thing rarely happens out of the blue.

It’s often difficult to point at a specific event and say, “This is the definitive moment when everything changed.”

Especially when you’re living through it.

It’s usually something that gradually becomes agreed upon well after the events have played out and can be placed within a larger historical context. Trends or events that may have been little known or understood to contemporaries can later emerge as the key drivers in historical change.

Take the Roman Republic, for example. Historians will often point to the reign of Augustus as the beginning of the Imperial era and the end of the Republic, but it’s doubtful the people of the time saw it that way. He maintained the Senate, he didn’t call himself a king, and he kept things relatively conservative and low key (at least after the initial purges were completed). He maintained appearances while quietly wielding absolute authority with legions that were loyal to him, rather than the Res Publica.

But the Republic had fallen at least a generation or two prior to Augustus. It began when unthinkable acts were made reality without any serious penalties. Acts of violence in sacred places or against actual Senators was unheard of, yet a few ambitious men decided that they would ignore all prohibitions to get the power they wanted and found themselves rewarded for it. And so the generation after them learned that the ones who were willing to go to the most extreme lengths in service of personal power were the people who won. The Republic was already dead when Caesar crowned himself with a laurel.

When Augustus emerged as the sole survivor after years of war and waste following Caesar’s assassination, there was no one left alive who remembered how things used to be and likely no one left who wanted to return to the old ways due to the absolute violence and chaos unleashed by the death throes of the Republic. Rather than killing-off the old republic, Augustus was merely the period at the end of a long sentence.

And so at last, here we are at the end of the American Republic. Commerce, and the greed that accompanies it, was always going to be the thing that finally did us in. This nation was created for mercantilism and making us much money as possible for the least possible cost. Not much about that changed after the colonies established their independence and created their own republic, other than the lion’s share of profits stayed at home with the new domestic elite, rather than being sent overseas to some British lords.

The business of America has always been Business. Almost the entirety of US history is a story of Business and Government colluding, and then sometimes colliding, over the exploitation of the American people.

But for all the corruption, Rockefeller was never provided the keys to the Treasury and given free reign to to do whatever he wished. There was always a red line that elected officials would never let any of the oligarchs cross, as they recognized their own legitimacy would evaporate the instant they did. Anyone would be a fool to do so, yet the slow capitulation to Capital that began in earnest 40 years ago has become so complete that a foreign barbarian who happens to be the richest man in the world is currently looting the Treasury and tearing down the Republic from within.

But what of our friends from Article 1, the Congress? Surely, they would have something to say about the supposed seat of government having its dictates ignored and its fiscal outlays diverted without counsel or consideration? It turns out that spending 60 years surrendering Constitutional authority in small ways to the Executive branch in response to Cold War contingencies, the slow blurring of different Branches of government into mere departments within a monolith, and the adoption of Party loyalty above everything else, have finally conspired to neuter the former seat of American government into a powerless but noisy cheer-leading section, advisory council, or sometimes prickly foil to a preeminent Executive.

The less said about the Courts, the better. It was always up to the Executive to enforce any judicial decrees, but once the Supreme Court nullified itself by stating that whatever the Executive did was legal, they signed themselves out of any serious consideration. For now, the current regime will likely play a game of brinkmanship with ignoring court orders, but the die has already been cast. At some point, judgements that are detrimental to current actions will be ignored, while those that punish the regime’s foes are pursued and enforced with enthusiastic glee.

Humpty Dumpty is broken and he will not be put back together again. The former Republic will not be reassembled Kintsugi-style into something that was broken but made beautiful. The current acts will only accelerate and what new thing emerges from this transition period will be a monster of the oligarch’s creation made to service them. They’ll likely maintain the faux-appearance of the former Republic, like a movie set with impressive facades that are literally just two-dimensional plywood stand-ups, but everyone will know who actually matters.

I’m just one man. I don’t have any control over what’s happening. The only control I have is how I respond to it. The Oath I swore to the Constitutional Republic ended years ago, but anyone who grew up and spent their life in the military subculture often feels a spiritual or moral obligation to the government long after their service ended, but I’m here to tell you that those ties have been irrevocably severed. This isn’t the Constitutional Republic we swore fealty to; it’s a mutated mockery, like one of Tolkien’s orcs.

At this point, the the only thing you can do is survive. Find joy in the things you can. Perform acts of kindness for your neighbors. Things are going to get worse before they get worse, so maintain a light as long as you can.

For those that kept the faith to the end, godspeed. For everyone else, may whatever gods you believe in have mercy on your souls.