Emperor Gaius Trump?
Caligula’s rule offers insights about how defiance and obstinacy can lead to one’s downfall.
As I was reading Camus’ Caligula, though I struggled to understand the main protagonist’s nature, I couldn’t help being reminded of Trump. He shares the mysterious and surly trait of the emperor’s temperament. With regards to truth, Caligula states that “Everything around me is lies, and I, I want to live in truth!”. Trump has ceaselessly called out the “fake news media”, claiming that only he is right, that only he tells the truth.
Caligula is Rome’s most infamous emperor. History remembers him for his extravagance, his arbitrary killings and his incestual relationships ; or to put it simply, his madness. While there is some truth to it, most of these accounts are exaggerations or fabrications. That is not to say that he wasn’t evil or that he doesn’t deserve this reputation, but it shows that whoever the real Caligula was, there was something about him or his actions that led historians and people to willingly worsen their accounts and vilify his character. Something he shares with Trump.
Let me be clear, Trump is no tyrant and the United States is no Ancient Rome. Yet, there’s something about these two complex yet often caricatured figures, that make them worth comparing.
