Sacking & Sedition in the U.S. Capitol

Perhaps it was the guy with the Viking helmet and face paint, the one who looked like he just left a 5th Century frat party. Maybe it was the sight of a violent throng scaling the walls of the U.S. Capitol, most of whom had clearly stocked up at the Trump merch store before setting off to topple a duly elected government. Whatever the reasons, the events of January 6, 2021 in Washington D.C. echoed those of August 24, 410 in Rome, both for their contemporary symbolism and for the lessons that one can teach us about the other.

Sixteen centuries before the president of the United States encouraged thousands of his followers to march on Capitol Hill for the purpose of keeping himself in power despite the legitimate election of his successor, which ended in several deaths and the first sacking of the Capitol building since the War of 1812, another leader—Alaric—led thousands of his followers to sack the city of Rome. Alaric’s Visigoths were the first to breach the city in 800 years and their exploits shook the known world. But 410 does not mark the end of Roman civilization in the West. That took another 65 years to complete. Lots of decisions were made, actions taken or left undone in the years that followed. The raid on Rome was a shock to the system, but not a fatal one.

But Rome wasn't sacked in a day. By all accounts, Alaric had a more coherent plan in mind than his 21st Century counterparts when he breached the city’s walls. He was looking for food and supplies to keep his people going after years of frustration that the Romans would not offer him a place in the imperial order. Even so, things did not work out for him. After the raid, Alaric was irredeemable in the eyes of the Romans. The sight of open sedition at the American Capitol, has evoked similar outrage against those who carried out the attack, and those who supported it, at least in the short-term. As has been the case since the November presidential election, the institutions of a democratic republic have largely held. This is due in no small part to a handful of key decisions made by judges and mostly Republican state and local officials in key states who refused to put their party’s leader above their oaths of office. After the attack on Capitol Hill, even the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with a deep-rooted tradition of staying out of domestic politics, felt compelled to issue a statement affirming their allegiance to the Constitution.

Still, in both cases, the psychological blow was profound. As news of Rome’s sacking spread, St. Jerome lamented "If Rome can perish, what can be safe?” The Roman West had been in disarray and decline for many years before 410 but the idea of barbarians (which the Romans considered the Goths to be) rampaging through the eternal city brought the deterioration of the empire into stark relief. Many Americans have a similar sense of vulnerability and dread following January 6, wondering what can be safe, whether the Republic has the strength to endure. Those—particularly in Congress—who believed that it was largely harmless to indulge the president’s fragile ego and so encourage, or at least tolerate, the fiction that he had not lost the election saw a dramatic manifestation of this lie, even if most failed to draw the lesson. The attack of January 6 has forced us to look anew at the mess created by centuries of racial bigotry, decades of civic laziness, years of propaganda parading as news and social media bubbles of alternate realities designed to consume our minds like digital quicksand.

Alaric’s attack on Rome was a singular moment, but the business of Roman government was not immediately affected, since it had long since moved to Ravenna on the Adriatic coast. Similarly, the business of the U.S. Congress on January 6—to certify the victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the November presidential election—was delayed only a few hours.

Great events tend to expose existing conditions, clarify things, focus the mind, but they rarely make history on their own. History is made by people over time, through the course of millions of decisions and actions great and small. It is a mistake to assume either that the Republic is lost because a third (or more) of the nation lives in a fact-free reality that supports political violence, or that the Constitutional order has shown itself in recent weeks strong enough to endure. Neither are true but the attempted coup of January 6 at least has people asking some of the right questions so that we can create a path forward. Progress toward a truly multi-racial and multi-cultural democracy (the establishment of which is at the heart of this conflict) is not inevitable; it will require much more work to achieve. Progressives often like to think that history is on their side —a hangover, perhaps, of the dominant 19th Century European view that continuous progress is not merely normal, but inevitable. But if the 20th and 21st Centuries show us anything, it is that progress is not an irrepressible wave. Progress requires us to be more engaged and determined, better informed, and a whole lot less complacent.

For America, and perhaps the world, the 2020s will be the most dangerous decade since the 1930s, perhaps since the 1850s. What those two prior decades have in common are of course that they were followed by, respectively, the most destructive wars in human history and in American history. In our earlier example, remember that the Roman West did collapse after Alaric’s attack, even if that wasn’t the direct cause.

Collapse will not be our fate if enough of us can focus our minds, agree on a common version of reality and revive our ability to work together. We have to restore the confidence and optimism that have long defined us by beating back the civic epidemic of cynicism which infects our relationships with each other, with our public institutions and our own faith in ourselves and our neighbors. It makes us question our ability solve problems that seem too big, too complex, even though we have tackled bigger, more complex problems before.

As historian Jon Meacham puts it, “This is unquestionably a dispiriting time. The story of American history, though, is that we repeatedly overcome such dispiriting moments.”

Originally published in Medium as “Sacking & Sedition in the U.S. Capitol.” Want to stay up to date on topics like this? Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn. We offer strategic insights on critical incidents and historical perspectives. Schedule a time to learn more from our team HERE.

Previous
Previous

Compromised Ambitions: Lessons of the Shuttle Disasters

Next
Next

Better Angels in the Wings