| The Late Republic of Rome offers some enduring lessons for why Cheney deserves support while recognizing the need for constitutional reform. |
Liz Cheney is now a lame duck in Congress, but this fall, she promises to soar to her Ciceronian moment. Cheney lost the Wyoming Republican primary on August 16, 2022 because she did not support Donald Trump and his election denial campaign. A Ciceronian moment has three main features. First, it involves the head-to-head clash of an anti-constitutional demagogue against a conservative defender of the status quo; second, it demands profound and substantive speech-writing and delivery to remind people of the necessity of a moral commitment to uphold a constitution. The last feature of a Ciceronian moment, however, is a major deficiency: it personalizes the threat to the system in one person rather than highlighting the need for reform in the longer term. The Ciceronian moment is high political drama that if not supplemented with a voice for strategic reform will fail to address the underlying rot in a constitutional system.
This idea of the Ciceronian moment originates in the history of Rome’s Late Republic. In the lifetime of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.E.), Rome’s constitution showed signs of structural weakness, much like one of Cicero’s own rickety tenements for the urban proletariat.[1] In 63 B.C.E., Cicero held the highest executive office, the consulship. He won the election in the previous year against Catiline, a demagogue. According to many ancient and modern sources, Catiline claimed the election was illegitimate and was supported by radical senators, disgruntled debtors, dispossessed farmers, and unemployed veterans to overthrow the Roman constitution by mob violence.[2] Cicero denounced the unconstitutional conspiracy, using all the powers of rhetoric in delivering four powerful invectives against Catiline. One of his famous lines opened the First Catilinarian: “In the name of heaven, Catilina, how long to you propose to exploit our patience?”[3] This was Cicero’s public persona; privately he used a network of informants to expose and sabotage the conspiracy. Eventually, Catiline fled Rome, joined with a rebel army, and died bravely in battle. Cicero believed that this was the crowning achievement of his career and blatantly cultivated this image for his contemporaries and posterity.
This example from the Late Republic is not unlike Liz Cheney’s commitment to defend the US Constitution against Donald Trump. She has met her Ciceronian moment in facing Donald Trump and in demonstrating the political courage to uphold the rule of law. She is marshalling the power of the spoken word in her speeches. Her concession speech is a case in point. She reinforces the foundational premises of democracy and the potential for self-destructive patterns if Trumpian politics continue: “Our republic relies upon the goodwill of all candidates for office to accept honorably the outcome of elections.” Cheney demonstrated this goodwill by conceding the race to her opponent. She goes on later to explain the significance of the January 6th attack on the Capitol:
At the heart of the attack on January 6 is a willingness to embrace dangerous conspiracies that attack the very core premise of our nation. That lawful elections reviewed by the courts when necessary, and certified by the states and Electoral College, determine who serves as president. If we do not condemn the conspiracies and the lies, if we do not hold those responsible to account, we will be excusing this conduct, and it will become a feature of all elections. America will never be the same.
Cheney’s reasoning is clear: Trumpian politics could set off a new era in political violence, where legitimacy comes from the weapons of rioters and not elections, courts, and the law. Her peroration concludes the speech with a clear commitment to one, over-riding political goal:
I have said since January 6, that I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it. This is a fight for all of us together. I’m a conservative Republican. I believe deeply in the principles and the ideals on which my party was founded. I love its history. And I love what our party has stood for. But I love my country more.[4]
In all this, Cheney is a profile in courage. She knowingly sacrificed her Wyoming Congressional seat to uphold her personal values and the US Constitution.
Yet in a greater sense, this Ciceronian moment is not enough just as it was not enough in the Late Republic. In reading about the Late Republic, the striking fact is these Ciceronian moments recur again and again. First, Cicero vanquished Catiline, then he opposed Caesar, and then he thundered his philippics[5] against Antony, who when the moment was ripe had Cicero killed, his tongue cut out and his hands chopped off so that they could be nailed to the Forum speaker’s platform to grimly mock his penchant for speechifying and bold gestures. Antony reminded onlookers that without law, raw violence will overpower any speaker. The pen was not mightier than the sword, at least in that case.
Cheney may or may not succeed in defeating Trump’s assault on constitutional norms, but whether she succeeds or not, the lesson of the Late Republic is clear: eliminating one pernicious leader is not enough to save a constitutional system. Leaders are symptoms, not the cause of the constitutional disease. Trump is a symptom of deeper problems in the American constitutional system, including wealth inequality, structural racism, outdated and unjust electoral rules, interminable elections cycles, corrosive social media dynamics, and a Supreme Court that is losing its legitimacy. The Ciceronian moment must be met to save a republic from destructive demagogic leaders, but this will not be enough to save the American republic. The conditions and causes that give rise to them must also be considered. Cheney and her Chairman, Bernie Thompson, would cement their legacies as defenders of the Constitution if they shift the January 6th Committee Hearings to include a broader examination of the long-term trends that led to the January 6th insurrection. Without a thorough-going self-examination, the conservativism of Cheney’s defense will win the battle of constitutional preservation but lose the war of constitutional adaptation and survival.
Cheney’s is a great voice for preserving the constitution but where are the voices advocating for defending the need for reform of the constitution? Americans have a profound and deepening distrust of all their major governing institutions.[6] This erosion of trust in basic governance institution predates and will post-date Trump. Furthermore, this lack of trust in institutions is not simply the result of irresponsible leaders like Trump weaponizing social media and hyper-partisan followers. It is a long-term trend, a deeper rot in the state. Trump is merely the surface symptom. Americans and supporters of constitutional survival have to think systemically about the conditions that gave rise to Trump to prevent the next Trump from emerging.[7]
[1] In addition to being an orator, lawyer, senator, and politician, Cicero was a wealthy slumlord who wrote to his friend Atticus after two of his tenements collapsed: “Other people call this a disaster, I don’t even call it a nuisance. … Heavens above, how utterly trivial such things appear to me! However, there is a building scheme under way … which should turn this loss into a profit.” Cicero, Letters to Atticus 363 XIV 9 (ed. Shackleton Bailey).
[2] The key ancient source on the Catilinarian conspiracy is Sallust, How to Stop a Conspiracy: An Ancient Guide to Saving a Republic, trans. Josiah Osgood (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022). A useful modern biography on Cicero that includes a balanced look at the Catiline affairs is Anthony Everitt, Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003). For radical revisionist account of the Catiline conspiracy, see Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome (New York: The New Press, 2004).
[3] Marcus Tullius Cicero, Selected Political Speeches, trans. Michael Grant (New York: Penguin Books, 1969), 76.
[4] Elizabeth Cheney, “Concession Speech – Aug. 16, 2022,” Archives of Women’s Political Communication, accessed September 9, 2022, https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2022/08/17/concession-speech-aug-16-2022/.
[5] The term “philippic” refers to a speech that aggressively attacks and denounces an opponent; it dates back to when Demosthenes of Athens gave a series of speeches against the threat emanating from Macedonian King Philipp, the father of Alexander the Great.
[6] “Public Trust in Government: 1958-2022,” Pew Research Center – U.S. Politics & Policy (Pew Research Center, June 6, 2022), accessed September 9, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust-in-government-1958-2022/.https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust-in-government-1958-2022/
[7] Upcoming essays under Long-Term Trends at Whiff of Grapeshot will provide more in-depth analysis of this issue of constitutional decline in American politics.