Donald Trump and the Napoleonic Mask

If you read the excerpts from The New York Times interview with Donald Trump, you may have walked away half-stunned that the president — who you always knew to be incoherent — was capable of reaching the ambitious new heights of incoherence displayed in his answers.
But the bigger takeaway from the Times interview is that as Trump settles into the groove of the presidency, he has begun to feel comfortable putting on a straight up clinic on what it means to be a statesman with deep knowledge of domestic and world affairs. However, rather than getting bogged down in his nuanced understanding of the complexities of healthcare or geopolitics, let’s take a moment to really appreciate the Donald as he dips his toe into French history.
Trump disclosed to the NYT reporters that while meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron last week, the two heads of state visited Napoleon’s tomb. Standing before the remains of one of history’s most consequential men, the Historian in Chief began to pepper Macron with questions:
TRUMP: Well, Napoleon finished a little bit bad. But I asked that. So I asked the president [Macron], so what about Napoleon? He said: “No, no, no. What he did was incredible. He designed Paris.” [garbled] The street grid, the way they work, you know, the spokes. He did so many things even beyond. And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death. How many times has Russia been saved by the weather? [garbled]
I think it would be a mistake to chalk up these insights to a combination of an intellectual inferiority complex, acute spontaneous glossolalia, and uncontrollable dysentery of the mouth. Let’s consider it instead a valuable opportunity to unpack how the 45th POTUS views world history.
Both The New York Times and CityLab seized on Trump’s comments about the invasion of Russia and the changes in architecture and urban planning of Paris (or perhaps the architected changes in urban planning, eh Ivanka?) to suggest that Trump is probably conflating two different Napoleons.
The more famous of the two — Napoleon Bonaparte , the OG— lived from 1769–1821, ruled the first French Empire from roughly 1804–1815, and is considered to be a military and political genius. The latter Napoleon — Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, aka Napoleon III, the OG’s nephew — lived from 1808–1873, was elected the first and only president of the French Second Republic (1848–1852) and, after his December 1851 coup, ruled the Second French Empire from 1852–1870. His political style and maneuvers are often flagged as the prototype for 20th century fascist leaders.
Now, confusing these two leaders is a honest mistake any armchair observer of history could make. Imagine how confused the rest of the world would be if the US elected two totally different dudes named George Bush to the presidency within a span of 15 years. And then expected people to keep them straight? Come on.
Now, Trump was most likely referring to Napoleon I when he mentioned the French leader whose “extracurricular activities” (chess club!? debate team!?) may have cost him victory in the Russian campaign. And, notwithstanding Napoleon I’s modest changes to the Parisian cityscape, Trump was probably referring to Napoleon III as the man behind the large-scale urban renewal projects which gave Paris its “spokes” in the second half of the 19th century.
Of course, Trump is by no means the first person to confuse the two Napoleons. In fact, according to one observer of Louis-Napoleon’s (the nephew) 1851 coup, Napoleon III often confused himself with the military and political genius of his uncle. This observer, a bearded fellow by the name of Marx, wrote an essay about this confusion which he opens by reminding us that history repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” At one point, Marx describes Louis-Napoleon, his moment, and the way in which he views world history. The man, his worldview, and his moment all sound eerily familiar, but I can’t quite place them…
“An old crafty roué, he conceives the historical life of the nations and their performances of state as comedy in the most vulgar sense, as a masquerade where the grand costumes, words and postures merely serve to mask the pettiest knavery…At a moment when the bourgeoisie itself was acting out a perfect comedy, but in the most serious manner in the world, without infringing any of the pedantic conditions of French dramatic etiquette, and was itself half deceived, half convinced of the solemnity of its own performance of state, the adventurer, who took the comedy as plain comedy, was bound to win. Only when he has eliminated his solemn opponent, when he himself takes his imperial role seriously and under the Napoleonic mask imagines he is the real Napoleon, does he become the victim of his own conception of the world, the serious buffoon who no longer takes world history for a comedy but his comedy for world history…”
