Politics

Mar 17, 2026 Jan-Werner Mueller

Like Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, the Kims of North Korea, and other famous personality-cult figures, Donald Trump certainly has a knack for staging performances, delivering simple symbolic messages, and putting others in their place. Yet unlike these predecessors, he is ill-equipped to entrench his power for the long term.

PRINCETON – There is no precedent in American history for a president who papers his image across government department buildings; adorns the walls of the White House with tacky portraits of himself; wants his face on a coin; names edifices after himself (including some already named after previous presidents); and trademarks his name in conjunction with the number “250” in advance of the country’s semiquincentennial. Yet Donald Trump has done all these things, and despite his party’s long-standing objection to “government overreach,” the Republicans have responded by solidifying his personality cult.