Imperial Dynasty, Part 2: The Kennedys and the Julio-Claudians
"Things are about to get royally f-ed" - Jesus of Nazareth 3 days before Easter
Statecraft is stagecraft is the theme of this rant.
My last substack made the case that the best comparison in American politics to the populist plebeian tribunes that galvanized the mob into political action, the Gracchi brothers, was with our own fraternal agitators of the old guard, John F & Robert F Kennedy.
As Nathaniel Hawthorne, via Leonardo DiCaprio in the Departed, once said, “families are always rising and falling in America”. Rome was no different. The intense rivalry for the top spots in the Republican era and dynastic intrigue of the Imperial era made the majority of Ancient Roman history dangerous, polarized, and treacherous. The difference is that in the Republic the rivalry was between families while in the Empire the rivalry was between members of a family. Republics, depending on their makeup, can be free but generally posses a level of instability as regime change happens frequently. Empires, on the other hand, are repressive but stable with chaos located either on some distant frontier or at the heart of family dynamics.
What American family can say it’s closest to Rome’s first Imperial dynasty. We have quite a few political families that certainly match the Roman families of the republican era. This long list includes the Adams, Harrison, Roosevelt, and Bush families - all of which have produced two presidents. Then you have others like the Tafts that produced a president and a chief justice of the Supreme Court. Then you have financial families, the robber barons like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Morgan, who built empires that stretched outside of America and exerted control behind the scenes. These families, like the nouveau riche families of Ancient Rome, often married into established old money families (usually rich in ancestry but poor in funds) creating branches like the Morgan-Hamiltons that merged one of America’s most famous founding families with one of her wealthiest.
These were symbiotic relationships giving resources to one family and connections to another. In Ancient Rome of the late Republican era, these connections could mean the difference between life and death depending on who happened to have the better army. Sure, staying alive is a goal in and of itself, but if you want to be a master of the universe, you put skin in the game. That’s an important part of Rome’s first imperial family. The Julio-Claudians are, if nothing, risk takers. An ambition mixed with boldness of character and a supreme self-confidence in their abilities runs deep through their blood.
In Julius Caesar, you also had one of the greatest showman ever. He understood that the best marketing strategy is a multi-channel blitz that hits the bankers, the senators, the soldiers, and the plebs in ways the resonant with them. JC did this best by winning. He was an ambitious, vain, genius and talented military tactician who used his martial and political talents in perfect balance. It’s hard to imagine the spectacle of Roman politics because when we think about political media, at it’s best C-SPAN and at worst, desperate candidates rapping in Iowa. There was no division between senate and military.
To be a politician, you had to have serve in the army. To be a top politician, you have to lead the army. Imagine if Senator Tom Cotton was still in the military, voted in the Senate to declare war and then was appointed to lead America’s troops against an enemy, that for once was not his fellow Americans. Now take it a step further and picture Senator Cotton live-streaming the whole war on YouTube, racking in views and ad dollars, that would then be used to pay his troops to march on Washington when he had a disagreement with the Senate. We could all watch the smirk slice across his face (and the tent popping in his fatigues) as he ordered the deaths of thousands of Americans exercising silly things like first amendment rights.
Stagecraft is statecraft. That’s what separated the Julius Caesares from other noble families. A keen sense of storytelling through ever action, be it in the senate or on the battlefield. In the days before instagram, people had to know your name. All those eye witness accounts of his victories, stories of his fair judgments and laws, and rumors of Julius Caesar’s fondness for sleeping with the wives of fellow senators were messages communicated to the wider world. After President Obama named David Paetrues to Director of the CIA I thought we had found a 21st Century Caesar but alas, the former general hasn’t been able to remain relevant after scandal. Also, we should note that President Obama is a distant relation to former Vice President, Dick Cheney… the old world has always and still shows up in the new world.
It’s through this lens, the stage, that we can start to identify America’s Imperial family. While I would put the Bush family as America’s most royal family with a 19th president (among the worst) and two 20th century presidents (more on that next time), they never never reached an apotheosis that sustains the necessary foundation myth of a dynasty. The Bushes are an aristocratic family but not an imperial one. Sure, a revenge driven war supported by a corporate propaganda machine and a pliable congress propelled George W Bush to the heights of the imperial presidency but he never captured the American imagination in any endearing or enduring way. The collapse of his foreign policy and economic agenda brought the Bush family so low that a mere 16 years after he was elected, George W Bush became a pariah in republican politics as President Trump mocked and ran away from Bush’s policies (despite hiring former Bush Administration officials).
The Kennedys, like the Caesares (who became the Julio-Claudians) have a lore built on the two most important things in imperial politics: wealth and tragedy. Had JFK lived to see the chaos of his Vietnam policy or RFK had been responsible for managing the United States response to economic staglfation of the 70s would history and more important legend remember them so fondly? Would JFK be the once and future king of America? The never-was-but-could-have-been is what makes the Kennedys our most Imperial family.
