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Original article: Donald Trump es calificado de “Calígula” por analistas internacionales: Colapso y decadencia del imperio de Estados Unidos

How Donald Trump Becomes the Caligula Accelerating the Fall of America

A growing consensus among political scientists and historians is establishing the Roman Emperor Caligula as a lens to analyze Donald Trump’s second term.

Columnists from Financial Times and scholars from Harvard, including Iscánder Santana in Diario Libre, are not merely debating the relevance of this analogy but its alarming implications. This comparison transcends personality to describe a system in which power is exercised unrestrained, blurring the lines between presidential will and national interest.

The historical parallel is rooted in the transformation of politics into a perpetual spectacle. Luis Ángel Hierro, a professor at the University of Seville, indicates a «Caligula drift» where each executive order and territorial threat, such as the annexation of Greenland or attacks on Iran without Congressional consultation, seeks to exhaust public reaction. Chaos is not a byproduct but rather a governing method aimed at emptying institutions, reminiscent of the emperor who humiliated the Roman Senate.

The military operations in Venezuela and coordinated attacks with Israel against Iranian targets, executed with complete opacity, illustrate the genuine danger highlighted by Santana: an authoritarian leader with access to the most formidable military and nuclear power in history. Unlike Caligula, Trump has intercontinental missiles and an arsenal capable of annihilating the planet, shifting the power disparity from one of degree to one of species.

Marcelo Colussi, writing for PrensaComunitaria.org, delves into the sociological profile citing Harvard studies indicating that 21% of U.S. CEOs exhibit clinical psychopathic traits, which are often necessary to declare war or bomb a hospital. Colussi labels Trump as a «convicted felon» acting as president unlawfully after dismissing the judges prosecuting him for the Capitol assault.

The systematic attack on institutional integrity is another central theme. According to Santana, the attempt to use the Department of Justice to prosecute Democratic congresspeople for «sedition» is not an eccentricity but a criminalization of opposition. For Latin American analysts, this trajectory feels eerily familiar, but with a crucial difference: it is now the world’s most powerful country traversing a path of power concentration and disregard for the rule of law.

The cognitive health of the president is also under scrutiny. Hierro warns from Público.es that Trump’s speeches, reduced to simplistic phrases like «having the honor of taking Cuba,» might indicate significant cognitive decline. This is compounded by his megalomania, evidenced by minting gold coins with his likeness and naming his symbolic horse—gestures modern historians interpret not as madness but as the utmost humiliation to the legislative power, akin to Caligula.

Meanwhile, the empire faces a legitimacy crisis. Marcos Roitman Rosenmann, in La Jornada of Mexico, recalls that both Caligula and Nero emptied the public coffers and identified scapegoats, just as Trump blames immigrants or «Democrat judges.» The key difference today is global complicity: from Ursula von der Leyen to Netanyahu, legitimizing Trump’s bombings, while inflation and impoverishment punish the American populace, a clear analogy to the decline of the Roman Empire.

The final question echoed across analyses, from ABC Australia to Diario Libre, is whether American democracy can withstand this trial. As Santana concludes, if the most powerful democracy on the planet can fall into the hands of a new Caligula, then no system is truly safe. The spectacle of terror and the politics of chaos seem to herald the downfall of the current empire.

La entrada Donald Trump Compared to Caligula: The Collapse and Decline of the American Empire se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.