Divide and Conquer: Taking Power and Ending Empires

One Trump tactic is bravado in the face of multiple indictments, with the clear intention of sparking another uprising. He made it clear with a provocative rally in Waco, Texas — the perfect spot to rally troops and stoke rebellion.

Commentary by Greg Guma

If you want to seize power, the first step is to stoke divisions. Elections may be about addition, but overturning a political or social order starts with exaggerating differences and deepening resentments. 

Then you need a martyr, or many, and convincing calls for revenge. Better yet, become both the martyr and the savior yourself.

After the assassination of Julius Caesar, his nephew and heir Augustus tracked down and brutally dispatched the conspirators. Then he established himself as the first Roman emperor. After that, power dramatically shifted away from representative democracy and toward centralized authority, an imperial order with a dictator wielding almost absolute power. 

America’s Orange Julius Caesar, after the failure of his first attempt to seize power, is currently preparing a new pretext and waiting for the perfect storm to stage his comeback. Election is either an option or just another obstacle. Adolf Hitler went to prison and was banned from speaking for several years after the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed coup d'état in 1923. Ten years later he was German chancellor, and eventually became The Fuhrer.

One current Trump tactic is bravado in the face of his multiple indictments, with the clear intention of sparking another MAGA uprising in his defense. He telegraphed his intentions by holding a provocative rally in Waco, Texas on March 25, 2023 — the 30th anniversary of the Branch Davidian siege in the same place. A perfect spot to rally the troops and revive the rebellion.

Anticipating the Saturday rally, a Trump supporter brandished a "Trump or Death" flag
near the former president's Mar-a-Lago home on March 20, 2023.

In 1993, Federal agents, aiming to arrest cult leader David Koresh, surrounded his compound in a standoff that lasted more than a month. It ended in a deadly fire that killed 76 people, including 25 children. Deep resentments, distrust of the federal government, and predictions about the collapse of the American Republic have circulated on the Right ever since.

After seizing power, Emperor Augustus went after the ability to introduce and veto laws, as well as command of the army. Until then, military leaders had stayed out of domestic affairs, and the Senate was a check on authoritarian challenges. The emperor also took control over officials in lower-level executive positions. No citizen could hold office without the emperor’s personal consent. In other words, he gained power over public institutions by eliminating critics and repopulating the bureaucracy with loyalists. As President, Trump was working hard on that, and would certainly finish the job in a second term. He’s already got a foothold in the Supreme Court, Congress and military.

As a result of the redistribution of power, Rome’s popular assemblies, a legislative structure that had limited executive power, became less important. They had operated on the basis of direct democracy and involved ordinary citizens.

In theory, the powers wielded by Rome’s emperors came from the Senate. But frequently it served as a legitimizer of the emperor’s expanding rule. The rubber-stamping of a dictator’s power plays sometimes provides a patina of legitimacy. In America, the Senate can convict a president after impeachment, but it has never actually happened.

On the other hand, the Roman Senate was composed of elite and intellectual citizens and also influenced public opinion. It could declare the emperor an enemy of the state. Or, after a dictator’s removal or death, it could wipe the record of his reign from official history.

In the US, struggles to control the national narrative and shape the teaching of history are underway. It’s still almost impossible to erase important events, except in insulated strongholds like North Korea, Florida or Fox news. But US states and communities are working on it, fast becoming laboratories for autocracy and christian nationalism. 

Meanwhile, the balance between legislative and executive power is shifting, aided by gridlock, obstruction, and a preoccupation with investigations and payback rather than finding solutions to what looks like a global spasm.

Trump in Waco, after claiming his own arrest. 


Maintenance is a chronic problem and a key to an empire’s longevity. While bringing Rome enormous wealth, power, and prestige, expansion ultimately helped bring about its downfall. An excellent road system contributed to trade and mobility, military and otherwise, much like America’s infrastructure. Both the US Interstate Highway system and the Internet were initially designed with military purposes in mind. But the cost of maintaining the infrastructure of a vast empire weighs heavily. In Rome’s case, both the treasury and administration were seriously overstretched by domestic instability and persistent attacks from foreign forces. 

Rome’s emperors tried to solve some of their problems through internal reforms. For example, Diocletian split control of the empire into western and eastern administrations. He thought it would be easier to manage. But it was a fatal choice. For the next 100 years, Rome went through more divisions. Finally, it split into a Western and Eastern Empire, a permanent break that changed the world.

Known as the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Empire survived for almost 1000 more years. Rome’s rule didn’t last half as long. The fall was complete by 476, when a German chieftain deposed the last emperor.

It’s a cautionary tale. Lincoln warned about what happens to a house (or nation) divided — it “cannot stand." Yet these days right-wing lightning rod Marjorie Taylor Green and others have a similar plan, a national “divorce” for Red and Blue America. 

Various Roman emperors introduced managerial innovations. Yet, in the end conflicts between East and West, plus external pressures and the slow depletion of its wealth and infrastructure, made the empire vulnerable to collapse. It sounds familiar, almost like a possible future.