In an impressive demonstration of the power of the electoralist dogma to twist one’s perception, Pierre Silverberg, writing in the Belgian La Libre, shares his belief that the ascent of the second Trump administration has a close historical parallel.
[Original in French, Google translation with a couple of minor touch-ups.]
From Democracy to Oligarchy
The parallels between the oligarchic revolution in Athens in -411 and the current coup d’état in the United States are striking.
In the Oligarchic Revolution, the Athenian elite decides to seize power, put an end to democratic institutions, and ally themselves with the enemy city, Sparta, to maintain their hold on Athens. Sound familiar? The historical parallels between the Oligarchic Revolution of 411 BC and the current coup in the United States are striking.
2036 years apart, both the Athenian oligarchy and the American elite present the individual and political freedoms acquired by the people as clear signs of moral and civilizational decline that must be acted upon. In both cases, the oligarchs present themselves as the only ones capable of straightening out the country and purging the nation of its excesses. And, naturally, in both cases, the oligarchy feels authorized to override the laws and subvert the system to the detriment of the people.
War as a context
These “oligarchic revolutions” also fit into a relatively similar historical context: war. The Peloponnesian War was a conflict that broke out between Athens and Sparta. Ideologically, Athens represented “progressive” Greece: its democracy was complete, each citizen enjoyed unprecedented individual freedom as well as the certainty of being able to actively contribute to the politics of his City. Thanks to its democratic practice of drawing lots, it is estimated that an Athenian citizen had a 70% chance of exercising a political role at least once in his life. Conversely, Sparta had kept its original constitution and represented “conservative” Greece. The City was a “gerontocracy” governed by two kings and a council of elders, the Gerousia. The people had practically no chance of ever exercising political responsibility and literally had to choose their representatives using an “applause-meter”.
The two groups of oligarchs also share a similar strategy and modus operandi: they appoint one of their own for new responsibilities created to meet an equally dubious emergency.Thus, in Antiquity, the elite took advantage of the announcement of a military defeat to anticipate supply problems and created a new council: the Probouloï, literally “those who come before the will (of the people)”. This “para-state” group will take up more and more space, to the point of drafting a new oligarchic constitution. This constitution no longer recognizes political rights to more than 5,000 carefully selected citizens and establishes a council of 400 members who hold full powers.
The historical parallel with Elon Musk’s D.O.G.E. is tempting. In any case, its existence is also justified by a narrative of urgency and management of public resources. We cannot yet conclude that D.O.G.E. will go so far as to draft a new American constitution, but it already exercises clear para-state power.
Blatant Treason
The last point of comparison is probably the most disturbing. In order to maintain power, the Athenian elite did not hesitate to call on Sparta, against which the Athenians had been fighting for three [sic] years!
This blatant treason was justified by the desire to ease tensions between the two cities and, in order to facilitate understanding, Athens naturally had to sacrifice its democratic constitution and recognize the new oligarchic order.
The latest developments in the war in Ukraine and the historic U-turn of the Trump administration in favor of Russia take the similarities to an almost unreal degree. All the more so since, in the process, Trump’s emissary does not hesitate to support the most conservative parties in Europe.
The oligarchic coup of the 400 lasted only a year, but democracy was only saved by the revolt of the sailors of Samos. Composed of ordinary citizens, this navy was the greatest force of the City, the purest expression of the term democracy. Namely: demos (the people) and kratos (the force).
We do not yet know how far the D.O.G.E. will go in the United States, but one thing is certain: if the ongoing oligarchic coup is stopped, it will be through the collaboration between the people and their public force to resist the hubris in which their elite has lost itself.
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Equality by lot 
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Stunning! Thanks a lot! I wonder why no historian has hinted at these parallels so far.
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Apologies for wrong formatting. I’m pretty OK with most online interfaces, but the new WordPress interface baffles me and seems so gratuitously geeky that I lose all motivation to learn it.
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“We do not yet know how far the D.O.G.E. will go in the United States” DOGE is a great idea but they are going about it all wrong. Elon’s steamroller/bulldozer approach is high on spectacle and draws all the clicks and ragebait. Whereas in reality we need to be going over all of these numbers and figures in excruciating detail with a shit-ton of due diligence and with oversight from multiple independent sources. Would love to see a public assembly/citizen jury made up of both experts and every-day citizens to help oversee this entire process. And Rand Paul should be running the show: his excellent Festivus Report has been documenting this corruption and waste for a decade now. He claims to have a trillion-dollars in receipts. I would sell my left nut to hear RandPaul imitate the voice of RuPaul and say: “Bring back my Venetian Doge!” #MmHmm
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Notwithstanding historical parallels, the key question is whether, in the age of Trump, Musk, Putin and Xi, there is a viable democratic alternative to populist autocracy. My money is using large, quasi-mandatory citizens’ juries to constrain elite power, but this owes more to republican notions of the mixed constitution. “Machiavellian Democracy” is all about checks and balances exercised by the popolo over the grandi. Nick’s notion would be better described as elite republicanism. See Camila Vergara’s essay at https://www.imprint.co.uk/republicanism-hub/
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*** Pierre Silverberg finds “striking parallels” between the oligarchic coup in Athens in 411 and today actions of Trump and Musk in US. I am not convinced at all but the parallel he draws imply an interesting point.
*** Thucydides describes how the Athenian oligarchs took the power from the Athenian dêmos: by manipulation, but too fear, intimidation and pure violence – see Thucydides, 8,66,2
“No one dared to contradict, so great was the fear inspired by the number of conspirators. If someone opposed them, they immediately found a way to put them to death. The murderers were neither sought nor prosecuted, even if they were suspected. The people did not move; their fear was such that, even while remaining silent, they considered themselves fortunate not to suffer any violence.”
*** .Trump rose to presidency by the legal and legitimate functioning of the electoral-representative model, as acknowledged by his defeated opponents.
*** Thus Silverberg teachs us that the electoral-representative model gives a soft way to take the sovereignty from the dêmos, whereas the Athenian oligarchs had to use the hard ways.
André Sauzeau
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Presumably Silverberg believes that up until Trump was inaugurated the US was indeed “a democracy”. What is the qualitative difference between the Trump administration and previous ones? It seems that Silverberg felt things were managed in ways that he more or less approved of but are no longer so. But obviously many US voters felt differently. It would be useful if Silverberg and those who see things like him were able to articulate clear criteria for what makes, in their minds, a government democratic. 200 years after “democracy” became the central legitimizing concept in the US, we are still no closer to having a scientific definition of the term than we were at the outset.
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[…] unscrupulous capitalists. At the extreme, we are told that people vote for undesirable elements (Trump, Georgescu) because of some fake online accounts or online ads by the Russians or the Chinese, […]
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Hi,
I wrote this article for a Belgian journal a few months ago. It’s surprising to me that I’ve received more reactions from the US than from my fellow Belgians. Anyway, thank you for your comments. It’s interesting to see how this article “ages” over time. D.O.G.E. is almost gone, citizens have been protesting, and some resistance can be observed within the judiciary, the military, and elsewhere. On the darker side, the constitution has been ignored many times, violence can no longer be overlooked, and the situation is still evolving. Only time will tell whether the parallels still hold.
Regarding my understanding of democracy, we still have a long way to go. But one thing is certain: neither elections nor sortition over legislative powers were considered democratic by the Athenians. Legislative rights were guaranteed to every citizen; it was the representative and executive powers that were allotted.
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The allotted council set up the agenda and wrote up the bills which the assembly voted on. That makes all the difference. The powers of the assembly do not make much of a difference one way or another. An up or down vote is secondary and the formality of the right to speak is meaningless.
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