A Republic's Path
“But since the institutions of the state, which were no longer good amidst the corruption, remained fixed, these renewed laws were not sufficient to keep people good, but they would have been very useful if, along with the innovations in the laws, the institutions had been changed once again. If Rome wished to remain free amid the corruption, just as the city had created new laws in the course of its existence, it should also have created new institutions.” – Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy
I remember reading Machiavelli's The Prince when I was running a State Senate campaign in Decatur, Illinois. Phew, with that campaign, I knew I wanted to get out of both campaigning and Illinois. I liked my candidate. She was young, smart, and a not “out” lesbian. She beat a three term incumbent. At that point, Decatur, like pretty much every small farm town turned manufacturing center in the state and actually across the entire Midwest, was a dozen years into a hard economic slide, a slide that never stopped. In 1980s Illinois, nothing said change like electing a woman, unlike say in 2016, where electing a woman said no change at all.
The Prince is a brilliant work. I didn't get what all the fuss was about in regards to supposed dark politics, you know, the “Machiavellian.” It would take me years to understand this historical slander against Machiavelli. His true crime was being one of history's great republicans, a true democratic thinker, and democracy is an historical anomaly. Even the few times across recorded history democracy has been instituted, such as in Renaissance Italy, most of the top of society aren't great democrats, including many of those who gathered in Philadelphia behind closed doors 1787.
The rebirth of classical Roman and Greek writings helped ignite the Renaissance. Another of Machiavelli's great works, Discourses on Livy, is Republicanism 101. Here Rome's historical republican path is examined for all to learn. The biggest lesson? When someone, whatever side they profess to be, marches troops into Rome in the name of saving the republic, well, the jig's up.
So, when one of our decidedly anti-democratic Tech Oligarchs publishes in his personal political rag, the Washington Post, a piece by three retired generals titled, “The Military Must Prepare Now For a 2024 Insurrection,” understand that path is a short route to the republic's end. Therefore, if a person of any age, race, gender, or sexual persuasion, tells you of the need for deploying the military to insure democracy in America, you can reply, “On the contrary, Machiavelli showed that's the end.”
“I shall boldly proclaim in an open way what I understand of ancient times and of our own, so that the minds of the young people who read these writings of mine can avoid the errors of the present and be prepared to imitate the past when ever fortune provides them with the proper occasion. Thus, it is the duty of a good man to teach others the good you yourself were unable to accomplish due to the malignity of the times or to fortune, so that among the many people capable of such actions, some of those favored by heaven may accomplish it.” - Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy