The futile search for a new Rubicon
In tumultuous times, pinpointing a defining moment might not be as easy as you think.
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What I’m thinking…
These are heady times, and as a political journalist who geeks out about Star Wars (Andor!) and Roman history, it’s hard not to wonder about the bigger historical context of where we are today.
The point became clear to me as I reported a story a few weeks ago. The piece, which I mentioned before, explores the consequences of the president and his administration dismissing the political legitimacy of his opponents. Several political scientists I interviewed talked about “democratic backsliding,” the idea that core tenets of our government were being undermined, compromised and ultimately tossed aside for something more authoritarian.
If that is true, one urgent question looms: How will we know for sure? It turns out that Padme might have missed the mark when she famously quipped, “So this is how liberty dies: With thunderous applause.”
In the news and online, commentators suggested that many of the lines the Trump administration had been crossing already were the tipping point. Was the assassination of Charlie Kirk a Reichstag fire moment? Was the president undermining the structure of the Constitution by spending money — or in the case of tariffs, collecting it — without the explicit authorization of Congress? Isn’t the Border Patrol supposed to patrol the border, not inland cities like Chicago and Charlotte? Surely, sending National Guard troops from one state (Texas) to another (Illinois) without the permission of the home state’s governor crossed some line, maybe the closest thing we’ve seen to Boston in 1775 in a long time?
The frustrating thing as a reporter and a student of history is that those defining moments often only become clear in retrospect.
Mike Duncan’s “Revolutions” podcast illustrates this time and again. Revolutions — or really just about all major historical moments — are a cascade of improbable events falling one after another. The people living through them barely make it one day to the next. Leaders we adore like George Washington or Martin Luther King Jr. developed successful strategies, but it’s hard to imagine Washington had any idea what would unfold when he struck out for Philadelphia in 1775, or that a 26-year-old preacher in Montgomery could see the March on Washington, much less the civil rights legislation that followed, when he was trying to organize the logistics of a bus boycott in the winter of 1955.
The HBO series, “Rome,” shows the moment that Julius Caesar’s 13th Legion crosses from Cisapline Gaul into the territory of the Roman capital. It shows a boy fishing in a creek. Then Caesar, at the head of a column of soldiers, takes his white horse into the water. There’s no hesitation. No “die is cast.” Just a wink from Marc Antony and one of the protagonists — a by-the-book republican — having a minor meltdown.
The Rubicon is probably one of many creeks on the way from northern Italy and, aside from the pivotal moment two millennia ago, not a particularly noteworthy one. For more than 1,000 years, local residents weren’t even sure which creek it was.
The significance of Caesar crossing the Rubicon was one of many mind-bending events that took place between the years that Caesar served as consul and when he seized the title of dictator for life. Caesar crossed many creeks like the Rubicon in his career, tossing aside longstanding traditions and legal restrictions and forcing the world to respond to his audacity.
We would not remember the Rubicon today but for the fact that Caesar’s main rival, Pompey the Great, fled Rome before Caesar’s troops arrived. If Pompey had stayed — or rather, if Pompey and his Senate allies had prepared properly for Caesar’s invasion — the moment the die was cast would have been at the city walls of Rome, not on the banks of some easily forded creek hundreds of miles away.
In the last few weeks, we’ve seen significant developments that could impede the Trump administration’s push for more unilateral authority.
Senate Republicans made the slightest of compromises with a handful of Democrats to reopen the federal government. It wasn’t much — many Democrats believe the concessions were illusory at best — but it also was not forcing congressional Democrats to pass a plan solely crafted by Republicans, which was the only option Republicans were offering for a month. The end of the standoff also undercuts one of the justifications Trump used to target spending on Democratic priorities, like SNAP benefits, clean energy subsidies or infrastructure projects in New York and Chicago.
Democrats, of course, also cleaned up handsomely in the November elections. The national media love to overhype the off-year contests in Virginia and New Jersey (both across the river from major media centers, not coincidentally). But the Virginia results were especially noteworthy. Democrats won more legislative seats in the House of Delegates than they had in a quarter century, while Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger defeated a MAGA-aligned Republican in a rebuke of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who saw his star fade in recent years after rising to prominence with anti-trans culture war issues when he first came to office.
Finally, it looks as if the federal government might be scaling back its immigration enforcement actions in Chicago — at least for now. This follows an intense backlash from just about every corner of the Chicago metro area from business leaders to school parents. The administration has run into a thicket of adverse court rulings trying to rein in some of its most aggressive tactics, like the frequent use of tear gas on unsuspecting residents and overcrowding at the main ICE detention facility there.
We can’t know now whether any of these will later be seen as a crucial moment — or “the” crucial moment — in history. The best we can do now is keep our eyes open and our minds engaged, so we don’t miss history in the making.
What I’m writing…
Many legal challenges to the Trump administration’s actions during the president’s second term have found success in lower courts only to be reversed — or at least effectively sidelined — by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. So many legal observers are keeping close tabs on a case on the high court’s “shadow docket” in which the administration is trying to get permission to send the National Guard of Illinois, California and Texas to the Chicago area.
But there are signs, as I wrote for the Chicago Tribune (gift link), that the case might not be an automatic slam dunk for the Trump administration:
The justices “do not appear to think that there is an emergency requiring their immediate action,” said Carolyn Shapiro, founder and co-director of the Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States. “They can and do act very fast. And they’re not.”
And what that means in the world outside the courtrooms is that the National Guard troops will stay off the streets until the middle of the month — and maybe longer.
The justices asked for more briefing on a key issue (the story goes into more detail), but those briefs and their replies will all be due by early next week. So we could see some action by the court next week or sometime thereafter.
Also: I’m looking at how urban planners are adjusting their city plans for EVs, given major shifts in federal policy and the auto industry. Ping me if you have ideas or sources I should know about.
What I’m reading…
A few quick suggestions:
Chicago Will Stop Investing in US Treasury Securities to Protest ‘Authoritarian’ Trump, Treasurer Announces (WTTW): Has any municipality tried to divest from T-bonds before? Liz?
Federal Infrastructure Spending on Transportation, Four Years after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Urban Institute): Why the Biden administration’s signature achievement fell short of its lofty goals, including a lot of inflation and not a lot of money spent on transit
Behind the scenes of the D.C. mayor’s battle to keep Trump at bay (Washington Post): A lot of detail that makes clear what D.C. residents already knew, that Mayor Muriel Bowser was trying to play nice with the president to preserve the District’s home rule authority. Also, Bowser thinks reporters won’t ask questions about vague policies and memos. 🤔
Parents on e-bikes are transforming the school run (The Economist): Yes, I’m one of those parents. But this is clearly a big phenomenon in some areas and not others. Good bike infrastructure makes a big difference, but if you don’t see it, you probably won’t believe it.
What I’m listening to…
The Counting Crows really make the Taylor Swift song “The 1” sound like one of their own, and then they go right into “Long December.” Chills.