The Founding Fathers studied the fall of the Roman Republic, and tried to create a democracy that could withstand someone like Donald Trump. On a special pre-election show, Daily Stoic’s Ryan Holiday talks with John about how history’s lessons can guide us through this perilous time.
Ryan Holiday joins John Avlon.
show notes
Ryan's website, "Daily Stoic"
Ryan's coversation with Mike Duncan
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"Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome." Love the Mike Duncan callout. I totally recommend his History of Rome and Revolutions podcasts and his book, "The Storm Before the Storm", which was mentioned early in this show.
And then there was Ronnie!
Excellent podcast.I am a family historian with some famous ancestors starting from 1653 New Utrecht Brooklyn and Rev War .To understand life under Tyranny and under a Kings rule.
Try visiting Brooklyn “ Prison Ship monument “ in Fort Green and over 11,500 Rev War prisoners perished and left to rot in British Prison ships off Brooklyns Fort Green . Took 75 years to recover the buried dead from the shallow grave along the East River.
And under British rule the occupation of Long Island was brutal and ruthless. If you wonder why the Bill of Rights was written. It was from the abuse of living under British Tyranny's.
The Hessian were nicer!
William Buckley strongly advocated shedding the extremists from the conservative movement at a time when pretty much the entire left seemed to endorse, or at least to tolerate, "pas d'ennemis a gauche" thinking. Any lesson from that for today is surely fogged up by the redefining of the word "conservative", but it's worth remembering at least.
Wouldn't Cromwell's protectorate have been fresher in the minds of the Founders? Wouldn't he, and his effective abolishing of Parliament when it got too inconvenient, have been the far more relevant example of a demagogue?
I didn't live in the late 1700s, nor have I read much history specifically addressing the period which wasn't focused on setting the stage for the Civil War, but I figure the Founders were far warier of a Cromwell than any King Charles, Charles, William, or George.
Good luck on Tuesday, John.
Thanks for the interview with Ryan. He and Robert Greene are the ones that got me reading history and biographies. What he says about the founders and Roman/Greek influence is covered pretty well by Tom Ricks in “First Principles.” One thing I found odd was the number of Scottish tutors.
“one of the problems with studying history is that it can lead you to despair because you see how bad things could potentially get. The other thing is it makes you go, oh, at least it's not as bad as then, right?”
Funny that Ryan says that. I’ve been reading a lot of Alan Taylor’s books and that thought occurs to me frequently. Not to minimize things nowadays. But, our history has been pretty brutal. Even during my lifetime there’s been the fight for civil rights and campus unrest of the 60s with 4 deaths at Kent State.
Nonetheless, let’s continue to bend the arc towards greater and greater justice. And Ryan: Keep at the wisdom book!
Anyone else find Cato the younger a tiresome, self-promoting bore?
What does the Stoic say about a candidate who pantomimes oral and manual sex acts at a political rally?
Gotta give Trump credit for preparing for prison when he loses.
Nothing.
Another excellent episode from John Avlon. Thank you!
The whole conversation was great, but one of the most interesting things to me was the discussion around policing your own problems. A point was made to the effect that bad relationships are rarely one-sided, but if each side polices itself, there is a greater chance for reconciliation and progress. I believe this to be true, but what was missed is that each side has to have a certain level of introspection and a willingness to admit they might be wrong. I don't think that either side of the current political divide is particularly great at this, but from one side we are seeing almost no introspection and no willingness to take responsibility for the current state of politics. Until both sides are able to, at a minimum, admit that their behaviors are part of the problem, a solution seems to be out of reach.
I did like the idea of exile though. :)
Solid. However correctives to Trump may come from Musk, who offers the greatest potential for meaningful feedback. He is admired by Trump for his wealth and boldness, and his insight into American realities, and he appreciates Musks valuable support in the election. Trump already walked back his "green scum" position on electrical vehicles. Moreover, Musk has shown that he is not afraid to express unpopular opinions, which have included different political sides; they usually have sound bases, though they may give him bad images. A reading of Walter Isaacson's (Isaacson is an impeccably independent scholar) fly on the wall biography indicates that Musk has been a consistent centrist throughout his career and has not sought wealth for its own sake.
In my long life as a leftist, I don’t remember any Democrats engaging in political violence. So I wonder what anyone expects Democrats to police. Opinions? Speech? Or are they expected to police leftists who aren’t Democrats? Donald Trump’s followers are actually Republicans. I don’t see any symmetry.
The assumption is that we are dealing with healthy human beings. Narcissists blame everyone else for problems and never take responsibility for anything. They deflect from their shortcomings by telling you about the failures of others. real or made-up failures. We are not taught to look for this so many people are FOOLED by the narcissist!
I am a subscriber to The Bulwark and to The Daily Stoic. Wonderful to see you come together for this important conversation about how history can repeat itself.
Article Vi, section three of the Constitution - that almost nobody discusses, even now - is a special oath requirement including all Republicans and other state and national-level officeholders. The oaths were written by the Founding Fathers to create a national defense system for Constitutional government, against an understanding of history in which Brutus, Cassius, Cato the Younger, and others were heroes and Julius Caesar, a Trump-like ambitious demagogue, was Satan. Nobody is invoking these oaths, - nor their activation mechanisms - that require many Trump-supporting and Trump-enabling office holders to remember what they said, engage the active verbs, and stop the damage.
The Constitution is a designed and complex machine for a Republican form of democracy to secure liberty and benefits of democracy while keeping the wrong people - ambitious demagogues like Donald Trump and organized minority factions - from hard-charging and manipulating themselves into control of all three branches of national government and dictatorship. If George Washington and his associates faced Donald Trump's invasion of the Capitol and other coup plotting, their responses would not have been Stoic! Cato delivered his Four Orations Against Cataline when Cataline and his faction plotted to invade the Senate chamber and assassinate Cataline's enemies. Unlike Mitch McConnell, Cato personally escorted the captured conspirators to their execution when "they were hung and their necks broken" in Salust's vivid phrase, in a book admired and widely recommended by John Adams. Cicero's classic discussion of tyrannicide, citing violated public oaths, led to the death of English kings in history known to the Founding Fathers. The Constitution's framers took the power and implications of the Constitution's oaths seriously. Their design tries mightily to save American Constitutional government from demagogues like Trump without violence - keeping them from office, separating power with checks and balances, omitting political parties from discussion in the Constitution and its system, impeachment, and - ultimately - the uniting, failsafe oaths throughout the nation to transcend partisan loyalties and stop people like Trump. It's overdue to ask Mike Johnson and all Republican office-holders across the land, "Didn't you take an oath . . .?" LE
What a great point. Of course they all took the oath of office. And when the new congress members come in Jan will they also have to swear they will defend the constitution. Maybe lawyers could be present to explain their responsibility to accept the election results.
I doubt the Trumpistas care what oath they took.
Thank you John, I would also vote for you if I were in NY. I am kicking myself as I thought to contact Harris campaign and suggest Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss and Ryan as men who are great influence on young men. All of them talk about values however I was thinking they might not be political. I was wrong. Ryan has a bookstore in a small town in Texas and has a young family. He has written many books even about parenting. Get on his email list reading list and you can order books directly from him. This is an interesting read. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/28/the-stoicism-secret-how-ryan-holiday-became-a-silicon-valley-guru
Ancient wisdom meets modern crisis - this dialogue reminds us that democracy lives through individual virtue. Our votes matter, but our daily moral choices shape our republic's soul.
Inspirational
I like to tell people that I am a perfectly faithful stoic - until something happens that I do not like. This podcast, being grounded in stoicism, is by far the most helpful that I have listened to in recent weeks. I have this prediction about the upcoming election that I strongly belief is true and the main reason I have for supporting Harris: If Vice President Harris fails to obtain a constitutional electoral majority to win the Presidency (excluding a 2000-like Florida-like scenario), Vice President Harris will give a concession speech and then, on January sixth, she personally, a President of the Senate, will count the electoral votes and certify her opponents victory without incident. I am supporting Harris, because I believe this is true - and disillusionment is not enough to describe how I would feel if that does not turn out to be true. If the election results are the opposite of that, and Harris wins, I am equally confident that Donald Trump will do the opposite. He will never give a concession speech and will continue to breath out his fascistic anti-democratic lies that have already taken root in the minds of tens of millions of his beguiled followers and which would then continue to incite violent crimes against our republic - even until his last breath. (Can a stoic write that? Would a Cato have written that?) If Trump wins and Harris concedes as I described here, then if we can learn and apply anything from the stoics, then maybe we should focus on the concession speech and Harris presiding over the peaceful transfer of power and then politely ask Trump supporters "Do you honestly think Donald Trump would have, if the situation was reversed, conceded?" Could that be a powerful argument? Maybe we need to stop trying to appeal to emotion because Trump's followers already have plenty of that, and many of us may already have too much of that. Maybe our objective should be to get those among his supporters who are still reachable to also stop emoting - and maybe start thinking again. If we become the voices of reason - maybe some will listen? Might that be an example of what Marcus Aurelius meant by "acting with courage, discipline, justice and wisdom"?
I have always said that folks on the liberal/left/progressive side need to become a little more stoic in the face of the absurdity that we are living through today. More rational. More able to understand what they can and cannot control. Less reactive and more mindful before taking actions.
Perhaps the first step would be to walk away from the popular social media platforms which floods the universe with craziness of all sorts.
The smoke from hair and wigs being lit on fire every time Trump or any other politician passes gas or belches is hazardous for our health. 9 years of continuous outrage of the hour has done nothing to move the needle away from Trump and may have actually empowered him. At any rate he has been living rent free in the minds of many.
I once heard that if one focuses on the problem the problem gets bigger and if one focuses on the solution the solution gets bigger.
Actually the Founders designed the Electoral College (and the selection of electors) to prevent anyone like Trump from ever having a chance to be in the Executive Office. It is obvious that the Electoral College has failed to do its alleged work and occasionally only works to nullify the will of the people rather than prevent demagogues and other corrupt persons from taking power.
The only sure solution to stopping demagogues is illustrated in a number of plays by Shakespeare. But such bold action is unthinkable in our day and age.
We shall see in a few days if the Trump outrage helped or hurt. I think the outrage of all Trump's insane acts of the last month has hurt him. And may tip the scales. As a Wisconsin resident, I am absolutely appalled that he gave speech during his rally here Friday where he was pissed off because the microphone wasn't working correctly, and he simulated two sex acts on the microphone. Look it up. I know what I saw. This is disgusting. I can't walk away from the outrage and just say I don't care.
I said "a little more stoic" not indifferent! Even if he loses he will still have considerable power over half the country. I heard about his sex act on stage. But I don't ever watch Trump do anything. I turn off any extensive coverage of him on TV and don't read articles about him in the paper. I cast my vote on Thursday and I am sure it will be days, if not weeks, before we know who wins the election. So, no I will not watch the election returns on election night. It would only produce anxiety over something about which I have no control.
Question for the historians: Has there ever been a time when an autocracy has been replaced by a democratic government without political violence or all-out revolution?
I see the US quickly turning into a Putin-style system after Trump solidifies the trifecta of the senate, the judiciary, and the administrative branch. The fourth and fifth “branches”, the media and business, are already bending the knee to his threats.
How can this oligarchy ever be reversed? Seems like a one-way street, historically: China, Russia, NK, Iran, Cuba, etc.
When authoritarians have been ousted, it has been bloody: the revolutions in America and France, Civil War, WW2.
I think it depends on the autocrat. In 1986, at the point where Ferdinand Marcos would have had to start killing protesters to remain in office, he followed US advice to go into exile instead. A few years later, Augusto Pinochet stepped down.
In both cases, I think the dictators responded to carrots and sticks from external countries. I'm not sure what country or alliance would be able to provide such carrots and sticks to persuade a US president to step down. I suspect that Trump would fight to the death of his last supporter, rather than give up power.
Not an historian here but I am thinking that the rise of the Eastern and Central European republics after the collapse of the Soviet Union but only because the Soviets lost the will and power to try and stop them.
I think generally the only real power autocracies have is the threat of violence to keep the people in line. If the threat doesn't work then violence is used which then leads to the bloody resistance and revolutions.
Can oligarchy be reversed? Some revolutions have empowered tyrants and essentially a new set of oligarchs given power. The French Revolution was violent but then the violence was extended in order to solidify the political "gains" of the revolutionaries and within a short time embracing a new autocratic monarch.
There is a thing called "The Iron Law of Oligarchy" that basically says that every system or organization will eventually be captured by oligarchic forces. I think that may be waht we are seeing in America today.
“[Robert] Michels argues that democratic attempts to hold leadership positions accountable are prone to fail, since with power comes the ability to reward loyalty, the ability to control information about the organization, and the ability to control what procedures the organization follows when making decisions. All of these mechanisms can be used to strongly influence the outcome of any decisions made 'democratically' by members.”
Rings quite familiar with the current situation.
Doesn't it though!
Thanks, I hadn’t thought of Franco. So of course now I’m trying to imagine a similar scenario playing out here over the next few years. Who in the current MAGA-mob would have the guts to do what’s right, after becoming the heir to DJT?
Harris winning, preferably in a landslide, plus Democrat control of Congress, would make things a bit easier. Even though it will still be quite a challenge to get to a kind of MAGA-weak/free 'normal'. Otherwise we can expect the same circus coming to town in 2028.
To your question.... I can´t think of any real gutsy MAGA people.... I guess the best thing that could happen is that crucial players (Trump, Bannon, Stephen Miller, etc.) would be out of the equation. It would also require complicit billionaires (Musk, Thiel, etc) and certain (Social) Media to lose their power (and money). And maybe JD Vance and Don jr. would accept being exiled to some other place (with some money) and leave things to a new (non-MAGA) leader....
Forgot all about the post Franco evolution of Spain. Thanks for the reminder.
If you like this podcast, you should seek out history podcasts by people who are actually trained in the field. Mary Beard, Anthony Kaldellis, Dan Snow (modern history), and others will give you much better information, interpretation and analysis
re: young men Richard Reeves would be a good guest
Excellent podcast just when we need it! The need for “Policing both sides extremes“ – precisely and exactly!
Many of the same lessons as Shirer. I lament my having given the Greeks and Romans a miss. Wonderful talk. Good news about Iowa.
re: the fundamental lesson of Stoicism being "what is in my control and what is not in my control"... it occurred to me that Alcoholics Anonymous uses this in their opening serenity prayer "...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." One wonders if Bill W. had a little bit of ancient Greek study in his background.
As an unhappy young man, I sought help in old wisdom. I have not made a point of reading stoic philosophy, but Socrates and others helped. I then decided to believe Jesus. Not to "believe in Jesus." Virgin birth? I've been wrong before, but I don't think so. He speaks with love, forgiveness and wisdom. Difficult to turn the other cheek, but it's usually the right thing.
I believe Bill Wilson would have studied the Stoics either before or after he got sober. He explored about almost every philosophy and religion know as he tried to gain and then maintain his sobriety. However he did not write the Serenity Prayer.
Some AA members read it in an obituary in the newspaper and thought it resonated with the objectives of the12 Step program and began to use it an popularize it.
It is generally attributed (in slightly different versions) to the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.
My own personal version:
God, grant me Serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The Courage to change the things I can.
And Wisdom to know where to stash the bodies when I get done changing them.
I like this, not just because it’s amusing, but because it shifts the emphasis from acceptance to change. I spent too many years at Alanon meetings listening to people using serenity and acceptance as excuses for cowardice. For example, grandparents using serenity as an excuse for doing nothing when their grandchildren were being traumatized by alcoholic parents. As someone who grew up in exactly that situation, I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming at them. I believe the real purpose of the Serenity Prayer is to remind us to stop and take a breath and admit what is real, before asking ourselves what action is required.
My PC won't let me "like" your comment, but I do. I agree it really is a matter of mindfulness before acting.
Ha! That is a good alteration. Note that I did not state that Bill W wrote the Serenity prayer. But I thought it was he who had implemented it into the AA world and written into the Big Book.
I stand corrected! It was a (New York) group decision in 1940 to promote the prayer for AA use but it did not appear in the first 164 pages of the Big Book which is the foundation, and unchanged part of all subsequent editions. It was adopted by groups (as a recited prayer) in groups across the country over the next decade and found its way into "official" AA Literature in a book called "12 Steps and Twelve Traditions" in 1953.
One of the most "Stoic" applications of the ideas of the Serenity Prayer found in the later pages of the Big Book (in the 3rd and 4th editions) is this:
"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life
—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment."
From that vantage point one can begin to mindfully address what needs to be changed which is almost always within ourselves.
Sorry to be so pedantic here. You just fell into my personal rabbit hole I call "The Stoics, Spinoza, Sobriety and Me."
Today I am grateful for the opportunity to remember some things because of your comments. Thanks and wishing you serenity in the next weeks ahead. Cheers!
That is the prayer of St. Francis! My mother had that on the wall for many years when I was growing up.
St. Francis may have used the prayer but he is not the verified source of the prayer. From wikipedia link in one of the replies to your post: "The prayer has been variously attributed, without evidence, to Thomas Aquinas, Cicero, Augustine, Boethius, Marcus Aurelius, and Francis of Assissi". The philosophy embedded in all of the versions we see comes from the Ancient Greek Stoicism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer
Avlon has written some excellent books on American history, and now he's going to Congress. Are there bigger things in his future? Let's hope so.
My recording stopped after 15 minutes,😞
try refreshing the page. My recording first showed as less than fifteen minutes but when I refreshed it is currently showing ~30minutes.
As I sit here now I fear it is too late for any of this.
But after my husband died 4 years ago I started reading philosophy and found a new way of looking at life through the Stoics. People think they know what it is but don't, I didn't. There are some good books out there on it, including two by William Irvine, especially "The Stoic Challenge". Maybe will relieve your cynicism. One thought I like, "want what you have". And a recent one, "Marcus Aurelius Meditations." Maybe it will relieve the cynicism.
Is it possible for The Bulwark to include a text version of John Avlon's conversation with Ryan Holiday? I don't listen to podcasts because, in general, I prefer to read articles.
Thank you.
If you scroll back up right under the episode, to "transcript," you can read it. Agree it's wonderful to also read🙌🏼
Click the transcript link just under the headline.
“Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten.”
For most of us, these lessons in stoicism come early in life. And like a lot of other lessons and attributes of childhood, we lose them through cynicism.
Very much.