The Politics and People of Roman America

     We free and brave Americans have already stumbled with full force into another Presidential election cycle.  Familiar worn out faces meet shiny new gazes in the gladiatorial arena of Iowa, the state that only exists a brief few months every four years before slipping back into a forgotten cornfield.  Already we have Don Jackass, a reference to perhaps the most sensible thing ever said by South Carolina Senator and candidate for President Lindsey Graham, the Vermont Sandernista and Billary making the rounds and blunders necessary for a successful campaign.
     In the coming weeks and months you will hear what your family, co-workers, and friends have to say about politics, whether you like it or not.  Many of us would like to pass over this, believing in the assholes/opinions saying.  I, however, enjoy the debating, name-calling and making up of statistics.  For those of you who may want to talk about politics, but wish to avoid a prolonged debate and possible resentment due to the bone headed beliefs of your peers, I have a secret question you can ask.  This question does not apply to everybody, but to most, it does.  From their answer, you will learn their political beliefs without them directly mentioning a single current issue facing the nation.  The question is as follows, “why did Rome collapse?”
     The Rome/America comparison has strong ever since the early 90s, when the Soviet Union’s collapse left the United States as the sole super power.  Then, the comparison was one of strength and superiority.  America, like Rome before it, controlled its entire known world.  Important to note, however, was that Rome’s World was the Mediterranean and most of Europe, with America’s world being the entire globe.  Rome united the Mediterranean in a single cohesive political structure that promoted common law and whose vast road structure enabled trade and information to move across the empire.  America, in a parallel, served as world police and its focus on the removal of hindrances to the free movement of capital and goods and the reliable dollar increased global trade, though some would argue not the benefit of all people involved but an unrelated issue for another time.
     People began using the America as Rome analogy in a more ominous town during the 21st Century.  Now, the comparison is one of imperial downfall.  Currently, when people ask, “is America the next Rome?” they mean to say, “has America reached its imperial zenith and now heading towards it nadir?”  This is where hidden politics lurks.  Our more conservative leaning friends will say ineffective and corrupt political leaders led to Rome’s downfall.  Further, they claim over taxation and increasing state control led to a bloated government that became too large to sustain itself, perhaps Republicans favorite branding reproach against those on the left side of the aisle.  Hunnic invasion, an allegory of Islamic Extremism and undocumented immigrants, and influx of Germanic tribes, harkening to Samuel Huntington’s drivel theory "Clash of Civilization", led to the weakening of Roman identity, which contributed to their Empire’s collapse, is another favorite of the conservatives.  The Christians like to claim that hedonistic paganism robbed the Romans of their traditional family structure, leading to the breakdown of its society.  This ignores that Rome was at its height under Paganism and at its decline under Christianity, but Nietzsche and his followers have already thoroughly covered that ground.
     Now, we pivot to our Dem friends. Those left of the aisle like to point out imperial overexpansion.  After the failed Second Gulf War, liberals compare to America’s overextending reach to Rome’s vast conquest.  The Roman Empire, like the following British and French Empires, failed just because of its existence as empire.  Empire is a failed model that acts as tyranny to the occupied and a moral and economic drain on the metropolis. To this, the liberals can say America’s vast foreign entanglements are what will lead to collapse.  They point to Vietnam and Iraq as examples that we failed to heed the Roman example.  A new critique of the democrats, particularly from the progressive wing, is income and wealth inequality along with unfair taxation between the classes made Rome crumble from the inside.
     What actually led to Rome’s collapse? I hadn’t a clue.  Perhaps the Republicans are right, bloated bureaucracy, foreign influx and over taxation pushed Rome into the ash heap of history.  Alternatively, maybe the Democrats are keener to Roman studies, and empire overreaching its grasp along with economic inequalities brought the colossus down.  Maybe this is bipartisan and both have truth, or they are both wrong.  Whatever the case, when in America, don't do as the Romans did.