Caesars are back, big Caesars and little Caesars, in big countries and small countries, in advanced nations and developing nations. The world seems to be teeming with self-proclaimed strongmen strutting their stuff or waiting in the wings, plotting a comeback after a humiliating fall. And we thought this couldn’t happen here. How can these uncouth figures with their funny hair, rude manners, and bad jokes captivate the popular imagination? How can anyone bear to listen to their endless resentful rants? Surely, they can’t get away with this? People will see through them before it’s too late.
But no. Here they are again, and in numbers. Look who’s leading in Argentina’s presidential race: Javier Milei, a former tantric-sex coach with a wild mop of dark hair and Elvis-impersonator sideburns, known as El Peluca (“The Wig”), who takes the stage backed by a hard-rock group. El Peluca promotes monetarism, free love, and the sale of human organs. He claims that climate change is a hoax and wants to burn down the central bank and close the ministry of education. In short, a mishmash of attention-grabbing ideas, because being eye-catching is what these would-be Caesars are all about.
Today’s little Caesars seem to thrive without any coherent ideology worth mentioning. What consistent line have Donald Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and even Britain’s Boris Johnson been operating on, beyond a loud and proud nationalism and a well-publicized hostility toward immigrants? It’s a mixture that has a familiar ring from ancient times. Even the great Pericles himself enacted a law that barred anyone who wasn’t of Athenian parentage from claiming citizenship (his own foreign-born mistress ran afoul of this law).
Yet, why should we be surprised? Dictators of one form or another have always been a lurking threat throughout history. They interrupted and betrayed the constitutional traditions of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic: Peisistratos, Critias, and the Thirty Tyrants in Athens; Sulla, Marius, and Julius Caesar in Rome. As early as the time of Thucydides and Plato, the word “tyrannos” had transformed from a neutral term for “king” into our modern derogatory sense of “tyrant.”
Absolutist rulers dismantled the city-states of medieval Germany and Italy. While some may hesitate to equate the excesses of a petty charlatan with the horrific deeds of a mass murderer, it’s hard to ignore the painful similarities in their methods: the shameless lying, the contempt for law, parliaments, and due process, and above all, the relentless propaganda that fuels old resentments and stirs up new ones. “Propaganda, propaganda, now it all depends on propaganda,” Adolf Hitler declared during the Beer Hall Putsch. The putsch failed, but the lesson was learned, not just by Hitler.
Big Caesars may seize power through lawless violence or more or less legitimate means, as Louis-Napoléon, Benito Mussolini, and even Hitler did, and then consolidate their dictatorship in a self-coup or autogolpe. Little Caesars, on the other hand, push the boundaries within a reassuring constitutional framework, which they cynically abuse by rigging elections, neutering parliaments, and manipulating the courts. “Tinpot dictators” captures it nicely. Yes, Caesars span a wide spectrum, but the caesarist style remains much the same.
It’s an uncomfortable thought that Caesars can emerge in any country and under various economic and political conditions. That’s why many of us choose not to dwell on it. We prefer to look back on such experiences as mere blips that leave no lasting damage to the body politic, just temporary “kerfuffles,” as Boris Johnson infamously dismissed Trump’s impeachment and acquittal on charges of inciting insurrection against his own government.
But the damage is tangible. In Britain, the inclination on the political right is to concede, at most, that Johnson was too chaotic to be prime minister, too much of a joker to accomplish anything substantial. Yet, it was largely Johnson’s personal achievement to sever the U.K.’s legal and political ties with Europe and severely impact its trade across the continent. Less noticed are Johnson’s Five Acts, which came into effect last year: restricting the right to judicial review, discouraging the poor from voting by requiring identification at polling stations (which even Johnson’s ally Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg called a form of “gerrymandering”), placing the Electoral Commission under direct government control, granting the prime minister unrestricted power to dissolve Parliament, allowing the police to ban “noisy” protests, and enacting stringent (but so far ineffective) immigration controls. These measures bear a striking resemblance to Lord Liverpool’s repressive Six Acts in 1819 and are likely to be remembered with equal disdain.
Those who continue to fondly remember Johnson as an overpromoted but lovable clown who entertained us for a while should also acknowledge his power-grabbing and obnoxious style of governing. He purged the party of 21 senior members of Parliament, including two ex-chancellors of the exchequer. He sacked around six top civil servants, defying constitutional tradition. He expanded the Downing Street apparatus from a handful of individuals to over 100 functionaries. He watered down the ministerial code, giving offenders the chance to escape with a reprimand instead of automatic dismissal, and then proceeded to pardon or overlook a string of gropers and cheaters. And he consistently lied to Parliament about Partygate, which ultimately led to his humiliating exit from office, an unprecedented exit experienced by a British prime minister.
Last year in the U.K., the Year of the Three Prime Ministers, may not have been as tumultuous as A.D. 69 in ancient Rome, the Year of the Four Emperors (two of whom were assassinated and a third committed suicide). However, it was an incredibly painful moment in our modern political history when chaos descended into farce, at great cost to the nation, while the world looked on in both astonishment and contempt.
And how has America fared? Trump’s agenda was nothing new. Protectionism, hostility toward foreign alliances, mistreatment of immigrants (with different groups taking turns as the most hated immigrants over the years)—all of this has been the mainstay of the American right since the 19th century. What sets Trump apart, as with all Caesars and would-be Caesars, is his technique: the tweets, the rallies, the bullying, the nicknames, the floodlights, the slogans.
A Caesar creates their own visual culture and revels in it. Emperor Augustus had his boastful brief autobiography, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, cast in bronze or carved in stone and displayed in public spaces throughout the empire. Today, fragments of this massive exercise in global PR can still be seen. Since then, Caesars have been pioneers in using new media, such as printing, photography, advertising, cinema, radio, television, and, perhaps most notably, social media, which provides unparalleled direct access to every voter. Trump himself openly said, “Without the tweets, I wouldn’t be here.”
The Caesar’s affinity for visual imagery is not a coincidence. They thrive in the moment, disdaining long-winded statutes and codes of law and practice. They are masters of the photo opportunity, constantly devising stunts, gestures, and costumes. They may appear as Greek gods, Roman emperors, construction workers, or fighter pilots, tirelessly working to convince the public that life is more vibrant and enjoyable when they’re around. Their verbal messages are deliberately simple, targeting the lowest common denominator in their audience (a method praised excessively by the author of Mein Kampf). These communications often involve distortion and manipulation, controlling the narrative and shaping public perception.
So, Caesars are back, and they come in all shapes and sizes. They have the power to emerge in any country, under any circumstances. That uncomfortable truth should not be ignored. We must remain vigilant, recognizing the signs and taking action before it’s too late.
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