Below is my column in Fox.com on my book, Rage and the Republic, which Simon & Schuster released today. The book discusses the increasing talk of revolutionary change on the left, a crisis of faith on the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence.
Here is the column:
“This is time for a revolution … They can’t take us all down.” Those words from Breaking Bad actor Giancarlo Esposito are being echoed by a growing number of armchair revolutionaries today. Revolution is again in the air as we approach the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence.
Today, Simon & Schuster is releasing my book “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution,” an exploration of the founding and the future of our unique Republic. It is a book about revolutions and how they can consume those who start them. Both the American and French revolutions arose during the same period, but one became the world’s oldest democracy while the other became a blood-soaked tyranny known as “The Reign of Terror.”
As I wrote the book, I found myself marveling at the comparisons between the conditions of the Eighteenth Century and today. The most telling moment came while working in my law school office:
“In May 2024, I was working on this book when suddenly I felt pulled into the pages of my research. A mob outside was crying “Guillotine! Guillotine! Guillotine!” Those words were not chanted on Place de la Concorde in Paris but on the quad of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. I was literally working on the material from the French Revolution when it seemed like the French Revolution had come to me. Students were holding a mock trial of the university president, the provost, the board of directors, and others over their refusal to yield to demands in an anti-Israel protest. Encamped for weeks in the yard next to my law school office, the students chanted “off with their heads” and “off to the motherf*cking gallows with you.” … The faux trial induced a certain “what if ” moment, considering whether we could ever actually devolve into such madness. It came at a time when protests are becoming more radicalized and, at times, violent…Despite having the most successful and stable constitutional system in history, there is still that moment: a fleeting doubt as to whether the system could survive the morning, survive the times we are living in, survive us.”
The book explores whether the American Republic can survive the 21st century amid challenges ranging from robotics and AI to global governance systems. It discusses the rise of the “new Jacobins,” politicians, professors, and pundits calling for the trashing of the Constitution and radical changes in the United States.
The original Jacobins were also journalists, professors, and politicians who joined the mob in seeking to tear down the existing governmental structure. We are hearing many of the same voices today.Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, is the author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”
Newspapers like the New York Times regularly publish calls to trash the Constitution or curtail rights such as free speech. In one column, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the nation to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
Another mocked “Constitution worship” and warned that “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us. A growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.”
Republicans and law enforcement are now regularly called “Nazis” and “fascists” by Democratic leaders. Some are promising arrests from the President to individual police officers. Last week, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner promised to “hunt down” ICE officers like “Nazis.” Democratic strategist James Carville previously threatened that “collaborators” may be treated in the same way as they were after World War II.
Gov. Tim Walz, who has called ICE officers “Gestapo,” said that this may be our “Fort Sumter” moment, a triggering event for a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
The dehumanization of political opponents gives people license for extreme or even violent responses. In cities like Minnesota, protesters carried signs reading “Kill Nazis” and we have seen assassination attempts on President Donald Trump and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Many celebrated or rationalized the murder of Charlie Kirk. A quarter of Americans now believe political violence is justified.
At the same time, violent figures are being celebrated. After Luigi Mangione murdered a health-care executive, some cheered and others like former Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz gushed. She explained the reaction of many women: “Here’s this man who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart, he’s a person who seems like he’s this morally good man, which is hard to find.”
Sort of Thomas Paine with a six-pack and 3D-printed ghost gun.
Even with guillotines now regularly appearing at protests, no one expects the tumbrels to roll down Pennsylvania Avenue. However, figures like Robespierre began as lawyers who espoused due process and the rights of man before becoming the architects of terror. He would ultimately declare that “Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue.”
The greatest danger that the Framers saw in our new Republic was the danger of democratic despotism, the tyranny of a majority that lacks limits on its power. They sought to avoid the fate of democracies like Athens that eventually gave rise to tyranny.
During the French Revolution, writer Jacques Mallet du Pan observed that “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.” That insatiable appetite has taken its toll for centuries. The Jacobins who rose to power during the French Revolution would ultimately fall victim to the “Razor of the Republic.”
The focus of the American Revolution was liberty, not democracy. It was the first Enlightenment Revolution grounded in natural rights held by all of humanity. They saw direct democracy as leading to what one of the founders called a “mobocracy.”
Notably, many of the new Jacobins today are seeking to strip away the protections created to limit public impulse. They are seeking to pack the Supreme Court and change the constitutional structure to allow for radical changes. Indeed, years ago after laying out this radical agenda to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election, ” Harvard Law Professor Michael Klarman warned that they first had to take control of the judicial branch since “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.”
We have been here before. “Rage and the Republic” tells this American story through the life of one of two figures who played key roles in both the American and French Revolutions: Thomas Paine. (The other was the Marquis de Lafayette). Paine opposed many of Madison’s “precautions.” In France, it came close to killing him — a mere accident by a jailor would ultimately spare him from the guillotine.
History shows that it is far easier to start a revolution than to end one. As politicians fuel the mob in major cities, they will likely find that today’s revolutionaries often become tomorrow’s reactionaries. In the early 1800s, Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, considered the Thomas Paine of the French Revolution, was asked what he had done during the Revolution. The old abbot pondered the question and simply answered: “J’ai vécu” (“I survived”).
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
“This is time for a revolution … They can’t take us all down.” Really? Armchair revolutionaries is right.
A civil war or their version of a “revolution” must be avoided at all costs. Thousands, perhaps millions would die not within ear shot of a shot taken in anger. The idea of them willing to go to war with other Americans is a sick mentality.
What were you really doing on your laptop in your office such that those chants were disruptive? I think the title of this push piece gives you away.
What are you really doing here everyday? I think the relentless gist of your push mush gives you away.
Lin,
Nice!!
How many of you magats are Russian bots?
V osnovnom my russkiye, yest’ takzhe neskol’ko kitaytsev.
How many of you annony morons are CCP bots?
How many of you annony morons are DNC bots?
In reading this, I realized but for a handful, if I said, ‘Jocobin’ to anyone I know they would have no idea what I was referring to even as if unfolds right before their eyes, and some of them are ‘Les Misérables’ fans and indeed love the idea of guillotines making a comeback. I will be gifting the new book to people, that much is certain. And I’m talking crusty older folks, not kids.
“Les Miserables” takes place during the June Rebellion in 1832… The French are constantly in an uproar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_France
James: Did you get to see the Broadway version of Les Miserables? I actually teared up during the song, “Bring Him Home, Let Him Live.” Beautiful lyrics and music.
To the point, your reference to “guillotine” extremism is well taken. If we all in society could get back to acknowledging at least the worth of others with whom we disagree (audi alteram partem) instead of Jacobin and militant extremism, life would be easier and more fun, n’est ce pas?
-But it is this majority-minority tension, DEI or ostracization, listen and reason with him or shut him up/censor him, -this mob power- that is so base and scary.
https://www.tiktok.com/@performingartsworldwide/video/7379905189861395745
“The focus of the American Revolution was liberty, not democracy.” That is profound. Since the fall of Athens to the Spartans, since the Athenian democracy executed Socrates, the best thinkers in the Western tradition have feared democracy. Our founders established a country unique for its interlocking hierarchical structures, open to democratic influence but not control. Only demagogues and fanatics constantly advocate the supremacy of “democracy.”
@edwardmahl – extending your thought with humor – completely admire your thoughts, btw.
1. While everyone knows who “Plato is”, there are no recorded Plato teachings written by Plato. Most do not realize his thoughts were, by and large, gathered from from the “teachings” of Socrates, who realized that if he blamed it on “Plato”, he might not face execution. The most famous, “Republic” was actually written by Umberto Caffaro.
3. Socrates jury voted 280 to 221 to convict/execute him – clearly, the Democratic party started long before most think it did.
2. Socrates was given the choice to exile – he chose hemlock.
Socrates was Plato’s teacher, who, in turn taught Aristotle… fair to say, Plato was inspired by Socrates, but it is not the case that “by and large” works attributed to Plato were really “transcriptions” of Socrates’ teachings. Also, Umberto Caffaro is an illustrator, and has contributed to editions of works by authors of classical antiquity.
Socrates chose to be executed to demonstrate respect for the laws of Athens. He said that “he owed it to the city under whose laws he had been raised to honor those laws to the letter.”
@mistressadams – you are entirely correct. My apologies to all. Meant to say PLATO attributed thoughts and dialogues to SOCRATES, not the inverse. Will drink morning cup of coffee before responding next time. Also, many sources cited Socrates was advised to exile rather than face trial, but he did choose to respect Athens – and drank hemlock voluntarily.
So, Turley was “working” on his book in his office at George Washington University in May 2024, rather than doing the work that the university pays him to do.
Perhaps this is why these elite schools do not have many conservative faculty members.
Perhaps these elite schools prefer to hire faculty that actually do the job they were hired to do, that is teach students, rather than sit around in their offices writing books for their own self-aggrandizement and personal profit.
Perhaps there are more liberals on the faculty because they actually do the work they were hired to do.
Keep crying. You have no idea what work arrangements Mr. Turley has.
Oh c’mon Anonymous, you know full well that Professors in all disciplines work on papers outside of their teaching duties. Publication is a prerequisite to the furtherance of a teaching career.
Sorry, I made a misstatement when I wrote that you know full well because as usual you don’t.
Then again you may know full well but regardless of your knowledge you express your self in a spirit of malice. The informed reader can simply review your previous statement and come to an easily recognized conclusion. You are transparent.
Thinkitthrough
You are correct that academics strive to publish their work in furtherance of their career.
But they publish research material in academic journals that subject their work to peer review, and they publish with no expectation of monetary reward.
They also write textbooks.
But Turley’s books are opinion pieces written with a particular bias, and are written for personal profit, which is obvious from his CONSTANT touting of his books here and elsewhere.
Another crap filled statement by Anonymous the know it all. Literature abounds with books by academics fostered by their previous work. According to your thinking these academic should turn down any compensation for their writings but they don’t. You can find many occasions on media platforms where leftist educators flout their books.
I will say this for you, when you present an uninformed argument you defend it until every reader comes to the conclusion that furthering your knowledge is less important than grinding your Turley axe. As before, I say that you are oh so very transparent.
Maybe you could share the list of your published works.
You’ve never heard of “publish or perish”
“Publish or perish” refers to publication of research material, submitted to academic journals and subjected to peer review before publication, with no expectation of payment.
It does not refer to opinion pieces written with a particular bias, and written for personal profit.
Perhaps you know nothing of modern academia and the importance put on publishing papers, articles and books
I actually know quite a bit about modern academia.
Publishing PEER REVIEWED material is absolutely vital for career advancement.
Publishing opinion pieces for profit is generally frowned upon, and does absolutely nothing for career advancement.
Anonymous?? Put your name to what you write otherwise we know you to be a coward and irrelevant.
Bravo, Professor Turley! A tour de force! I am already reading your new book. I loved the dedication to your wife, Leslie.
Trump literally called his mob of MAGA supporters to arms and sicced them on the Capital – where they broke through the windows and doors, defecated in and defaced the hallways, and chanted “hang Mike Pence” while carrying a a mock-gallows pole. Yet you, the so-called last defender of first-amendment rights – clutch your pearls because some protesters gathered peacefully on your campus – something they are legally permitted to do under the same legal parameters you claim protected Donald Trump during his January 6th speech. My God how you talk out of both sides of your mouth. Which of your faces looks back at you in the mirror every morning and how can you even stomach the reflection, Professor?
..another Ridiculous LIE from this Troll ‘Anon…!!! Review the speech Pres. Trump gave… NEVER was there any hint that Violence should be part of the ‘March’ to protest … Pres. Trump said Quite Clearly and in an almost Humble Voice, to ‘march peacefully and patriotically’ to the Capitol…. NEVER was there any suggestion to bust into the CAPITOL.. NEVER did any of us assume there would be Instigators from within already placed there to rough up the crowd………….. the same Instigators who showed up with a fake gallows.. Witnesses are on record saying that these folks were clearly Trump Haters, not Trumposupporters……………. People like you, Troll Anon., are now INTERFERING WITH A DULY ELECTED GOVT. with your BS :Lies, trying to stir up Violence………
Please, @eighteenthhole – DFTT.
1. For anyone who “doesn’t know” their statement is a lie, you will only be allowed 140 characters to prove
2. That person’s intelligence :== shoe size – cannot possibly understand an evidentiary response
3. You gave the stage to a troll. Just ignore them. When their ego’s are not stroked, they go away
Hey Paul –
Thanks for chiming in. If it’s your kink to be continuously gaslit by a morbidly obese man who’s self-image is so poor that he needs to paint himself orange every morning and comb over that flaky bald scalp with whatever thin hair continues to grow around the margin, knock yourself out. I’ll never understand why you guys crave being subjects to n wanna-be-dictator and prefer to be blind to the glaring truth, but to each his own. Enjoy your bootlicking sycophancy to your bloated God-king. What a celebration of the 250th anniversary of America. The original Patriots are turning in their graces knowing their descendants were so desperate for a monarchy again….
Forgot to mention, 4. Trolls use only one form of logic – connotative negativity followed by personal attack usually exemplified by complex leading question, followed by connotative exhortation. Example of troll “: “Beating your wife is evil”. “Have you stopped beating your wife lately”. “Why haven’t you stopped beating your wife.”
How many incarcerated lawbreakers are too many in the challenge to retain the rule of law, the one thing that holds America together? Either the government stops the insurgency of this one group (temporarily unified to undermine the current president) or green lights others unified by causes proven eternal (e.g. race, religion, political theory) and far more destructive.
Most significant in today’s climate is that ‘history shows that it is far easier to start a revolution than to end one’. Thank you Jonathan Turley for RAGE AND THE REPUBLIC that should become one of the chosen ones on the list of ‘must be read’.
Turls, the right wing is destroying this democratic republic…, and you are out front in that movement. While you navel gaze about the chants next to your office, a corrupted DOJ is seizing election ballots in Georgia and actively making excuses for extrajudicial killings in Minnesota and else where.
Are you by any chance in the Epstein files?
You are an idiot.
Wait, a rightest who opposes 1st amendment speech. Anon asked a question, and want to censor it? How leftist of you.
You’re still an idiot, even as Jacob
Jacob, no one is saying that Anonymous shouldn’t be allowed to speak. Presenting a vounter argument does not cause a limitation of her right to speak. Anonymous did however oppose free speech on twitter. Not taking the time you know her history and then making a comment in her defense simply shows a lack of seriousness.
Steve just said the annony moron was an “idiot.” Nowhere did he call for the annony moron to be censored. That is you projecting.
Thanks Stevie! You’re so awesome!!
Destroying this democratic republic indeed. Coming from someone who speaks loudly in support of a Communist being elected as the Mayor of New York City. Destroying this democratic republic indeed coming from someone who supported censorship on Facebook, YouTube and twitter.
Anonymous hides behind the democratic republic when she finds it convenient but rejects it when it doesn’t meet her latest narrative. What kind of person does such a thing? This question is just asked as a rhetorical question because all of us who have spent anytime on this forum already know who she is. It’s simply an ugly truth.
Actually you clearly don’t know who I am.
Turley: “Donald Trump was demonstrating his 1A rights when he sent his MAGA mob to the Capital where they changed “Hang Mike Pence.”
Also Turley: “These protestors peacefully assembling on my college campus signal a metastatic rot in the belly of our country!!!”
Old news with no proof.. Keep crying
+100
Yawn..
Cry,cry,cry. The left is losing control.
I ordered my advance copy of “Rage and the Republic” so long ago, I’d forgotten about it. I came home yesterday to find an Amazon package on the stoop. Since it’s an unfinished story I figured there’s no harm in starting at page 277 and reading to the end. It’s like a story that begins at the present and then flashes back. It’s a good read.
Thanks, Turley.
The truly unfortunate thing is that this behavior is displayed by fanatics at both ends of the spectrum – they seem to welcome the idea of abolishing ordered liberty with mob rule. They should remember what William Tecumseh Sherman said about war in his Letter to the City of Atlanta in 1864
This is relative to issue – not a political alignment. @whig98 your statement deserves further clarification:
Before Sherman led the scorched earth military action against the civilian population which resulted in the pillage, destruction, and rape of pretty much every home, transportation, city, and agriculture in its path – followed by sending an army of “carpet baggers” who seized the “conquered territory” for the next 100 years or so (check out who built the “post-war” structures [VERY few “pre-war” exist] – Newport , RI equivalent houses in Charleston, SC, Atlanta, GA, etc.).
The Sherman letter that the Brownshirts were on their way WAS sent – telling them to burn their own houses and make tents outside his path – leaving their possessions to his looters.
Here’s what he sent:
“.. we will have, and, if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it. . . .
Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta.”
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-james-m-calhoun-et-al/
Welcome to America
Do not ever forget to leave out the following history that after the Federals “fight for freeing the black man” that a President Grant sent his army of humanitarians West. Where his saviors of freedom practiced mass genocide and extermination of the indigenous peoples. Sherman in particular wanted to kill every single one, Custer, Sheridan, Crook, Fetterman…from Sandy Creek to the Little Big Horn.
HistoryRepeats, Sherman shortened the civil war by destroying the souths ability to feed its soldiers. The people of the south were not raped and murdered. Sherman destroyed the crops and killed the livestock that fed the confederate soldiers but he did not kill the citizenry in mass as you suggest. Instead of lingering to incarcerate the average citizen he swept through the south to destroy the means of resistance. Industry in the south was supplying goods to Britain such as cotton that was used to make sails for the ships that were being used by the British that shelled Washington D.C. during the war of 1812. Maybe you should look a little farther into history to gain a deeper understanding before you mouth your uninformed half truths.
If you would care to increase your knowledge I recommend you read “The Soul Of Battle” by the renowned historian Victor Davis Hanson.
The only history that is being repeated here is your convolution of history to support your bias.
Maybe you can do better but I’m not so shure.
TIT
My family fought on both sides, brother against brother. Three of thirteen, two on the Confederacy and one on the Federal. The brother that fought with the Union came through their hometown in Alabama in Sherman’s march to the Sea. Where they burned the family Plantation, took all goods and threatened to shoot their remaining two slaves that they pleaded not to kill, he was not a participant in this. That drove the family into bankruptcy, famine, hardship and destroyed their homes and property. These were families with mothers, old men, and multiple children, Sherman practiced total warfare against a civilian population. That brother returned home at the end of the war where he was summarily killed.
Sherman was a butcher there and a butcher in his tour in the West. If only Chief Satanta of the Comanches had attacked him when they had him, it would’ve been justice in this world. Do you really think that those Americans here from the beginning ever forget what was done to them? You want to learn about some history of Sherman, read SLA Marshalls Crimsoned Prairie, then read some of the national archives articles, newspapers and reports about it. Doubt that…
HistoryRepeating, why are you say angry about a war that led to the freeing of the slaves?
Very curious indeed. A leftist who declares everyone a racist if he does not agree with his viewpoint criticizing a war that brought an end to slavery in the south.
I understand. You do not think about things that you do not think about.
Democrats are like children…if you allow them to do bad things they will JUST get worse!
Time to jail them for their 10000’s of crime
Helping illegals is a CRIME. Start jailing them!
it is 1850’s except this time the Democrats don’t just want to BREAKAWAY…they want to go FULL 1930’s German Fascist on America
Sadly, leftwing fascists will destroy the republic before the mob they unleash eventually turns on them.
They eventually turn on each other to purge the middle of the road backers just like the French and Russian revolutions. Be very careful what you ask for, just look what the protesters are doing in Minneapolis