History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. Two republics that failed, with consequences for the whole world, have lessons for the U.S.:

Pre-Imperial Rome between 133 BCE and 27 BCE
Weimar Germany between 1919 and 1933 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

One obvious disclaimer: Donald Trump is not another Adolf Hitler.

But there’s at least one crucial parallel between Trumpism and Hitlerism. It’s the shameless embrace of the Big Lie https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

A Big Lie inverts reality. The human mind struggles to grasp its audacity, leading many people to succumb.

Hitler’s Big Lie said that Imperial Germany was never defeated in World War I. Trump’s Big Lie is that the November election was stolen from him https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

For a republic, a Big Lie is like a corrosive acid. It works slowly.

Hitler failed in his attempted coup, the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, and even spent time in prison. But he nonetheless seized power in 1933 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

If it took 14 years for the Weimar Republic to crumble, the terminal decline of the Roman Republic lasted a century.

One parallel is a rise in inequality. Rich Romans increasingly bought small farms and turned former owners into plebeians in the slums https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

With this inequality came increasingly brazen corruption by the newly super-rich in Rome’s senate, assemblies and courts.

This led to the rise of populism https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

Like today, many populists (such as Julius Caesar) were members of the patrician upper class, but cynically exploited anti-elitism to amass power.

Violence became commonplace, and legions started being loyal to their commanders rather than the republic https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

Once broken, taboos are hard to unbreak. The damage is cumulative:

Lies go unpunished
Violence leaches from words into deeds
Loyalties shift to parties or individuals

Gradually, the republic becomes hollow. Citizens simply stop believing in it https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

When that happens, as in Weimar and Rome, republics tend to expire quietly:

Hitler didn't formally repeal the Weimar constitution of 1919, he just ignored it
Octavian kept all iconography of the republic, but everyone knew that Roman liberty had ended https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

The good news is that America’s founders heeded these warnings from the Roman past:

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym Publius — the name of the man who overthrew Rome’s monarchy in 509 BCE https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

Self-government and liberty are privileges that each generation must defend.

The record so far is promising. The American republic has withstood insurgencies and conspiracies, a civil war, contested elections and presidential assassinations https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1

The things that Weimar Germans and republican Romans omitted, Americans must now do.

We must call the Big Lie just that, and kill it. We must re-sanctify republican taboos and punish their breakers. All this is in our power https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-15/the-u-s-can-learn-about-trump-s-big-lie-from-weimar-germany-and-ancient-rome?sref=2o0rZsF1