Donald Trump is hardly the first Mad King to grace (or disgrace) the annals of history. If you look back, you’ll find a whole parade of them, each as deranged as they were dangerous. Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Caracalla—those Roman emperors redefined hubris and cruelty centuries ago. Closer to modern times, King Ludwig II of Bavaria (along with his equally cracked brother Otto) gained a reputation for extravagance and madness—though I’ll admit, Ludwig had impeccable taste in fantasy castles.
George III of England spent a chunk of his reign in barking fits of mania. Countless Ivans in Russia—Terrible or otherwise—delighted in violence and paranoia. We like to think we’ve evolved, or at least that a decent prescription could temper the lunacy of modern leaders. But then along comes Donald Trump, rattling the system like a storm in a tin roof shack. And, as with so many historical mad kings, he’s not acting alone.
Every deranged leader has that inner circle of flattery specialists, hanger-on courtiers, and, inevitably, a “king whisperer”—someone at their elbow, feeding the mania and steering the ship into the rocks. In Trump’s case, the whisperer is Elon Musk, who is arguably as mad as his orange-hued sovereign. We’re now living under a co-presidency that merges Trump’s festering grudges and Musk’s dark mania. They’re not reformers.
They’re wrecking balls—driven by fury, greed, and a thirst for chaos.
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