JONATHAN TURLEY: When elites cheer the mob, history warns that revolutions devour their own
"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.
On Tuesday, 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 18th century and today. The most telling moment came while working in my law school office. Here's how I describe it in my book:
"In May 2024, I was working on this book when I suddenly 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 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---ing 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."
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The book explores whether the American republic can survive the 21st century amid challenges ranging from robotics and artificial intelligence 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 School of Law, is the author of "No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States."
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Newspapers like The New York Times regularly publish opinion articles with calls to trash the Constitution or curtail rights such as free speech. In one such 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 ranging 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 they were after World War II.
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Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, has called ICE officers "Gestapo," said 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 Supreme Court 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 was charged with allegedly shooting United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024, 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."
Sure, he’s sort of Thomas Paine with a six-pack and a 3D-printed ghost gun.
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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, which eventually gave rise to tyranny.
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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. The Founders saw direct democracy as leading to what one of them called a "mobocracy."
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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 a 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. My new book, "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 jailer 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, one of the few leaders to survive was Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, considered the Thomas Paine of the French Revolution. When asked what he had done in the revolution, the old abbot pondered the question and simply answered: "J’ai vécu" ("I survived").