The early days of the second Trump administration inspired Rachel Hadas of Rutgers University to compare Donald Trump with figures from Greek mythology as well as Greek and Roman history in an article published by The Conversation. “The Greek divinity Nemesis, rarely depicted in art, has no place in the Olympian pantheon of a dozen gods and goddesses. But she’s an omnipresent force of retribution, an implacable force of punishment that arrives, if not sooner, then later. Nemesis can bide her time for generations, but there’s no escaping her,” she noted. Hadas then said of the President: “So too, it seems, with President Donald Trump, who is ‘clearly not a man who discards his grudges easily,’ William Galston of the Brookings Institution said recently.“
After pointing out “this observation is an understatement,” Hadas continued: “Trump’s resentment has been steaming since the 2020 presidential election. Now that he is again president, he’s far from appeased; his ire is boiling over.”
“Like Nemesis,” she writes, “Trump is now pursuing his perceived enemies, using the power of the presidency.”
Seeking to provide some perspective, the poet and student of the classics tried “to find analogs for this behavior, this temperament – precedents that might help provide some perspective.”
Under the heading ‘Tyrants, Heroes and Horses’, she said that “Trump’s initial choice of a political ally, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, as attorney general – widely seen as unqualified for the post and who later withdrew – was likened to the Roman emperor Caligula, who made his horse a senator.”
Looking at Greek history, she says “the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus to Alexander the Great, could be famously power-hungry and vindictive. Classical epic and drama furnish plenty of rage, which is the first word of the Homeric epic ‘The Iliad’.”
“The Greek hero Achilles’ clash with the Greek army’s commander Agamemnon at the outset of The Iliad is psychologically plausible. Each man feels insulted and slighted by the other; both have cause for resentment… Perhaps the most famous example of vengeance in Greek tragedy is Aeschylus’ trilogy, ‘The Oresteia’. When Clytemnestra murders her husband, Agamemnon, on his return from Troy,” she adds.
Hadas feels compelled, however, to go beyond the ancients:
“Turning to a few of Shakespeare’s more vengeful characters, Iago in ‘Othello’ is an embodiment of a cunning rage that leads him to systematically destroy the innocent Othello’s marriage. He does this by falsely hinting – and then planting a chain of evidence suggesting – that Othello’s bride, Desdemona, is unfaithful.
“Othello eventually kills both Desdemona and himself.
“Hamlet himself is a reluctant avenger who keeps putting off the act of revenging his father’s murder. In the history play named for him, Richard III’s resentment, going back to having been a deformed and unloved child, makes more sense. Richard lusts after power; he systematically and clandestinely murders his own brother and nephews…
“Whether motivated by political ambition, generalized rancor, or an inherited assignment, none of these figures ends well. They all have enemies, and they all – except Iago, who will be tortured and executed – die on stage. All have done plenty of damage; none survives long to feel vindicated. Even Clytemnestra’s triumph is short-lived, since her own son, Orestes, will soon avenge his father’s death by murdering his mother – Clytemnestra.”
She notes, however, that since “all these figures seem to feel personal passion… They don’t present compelling parallels to Trump, whose anger appears to be simultaneously private and public.”
Hadas points out that “easily offended, Trump is quick to strike back with insults; but he also seems to have an insatiable appetite for broader and deeper punishment, meted out to more people and even after a lapse of time. Hence literary parallels are less than compelling. Trump’s anger seems more general than personal. His aggrieved sense of having been wronged, victimized by his enemies, is a constant in his career. But his targets shift. One day it’s judges; another day it’s election officials. Yet another day, it’s the ‘deep state’.”
The article then addresses… the audience, as well as the ‘actors’ he has surrounded himself with:
“And Trump’s implacable resentment has struck a chord among many Americans whose resentment has a more rational basis. Trump’s base may believe he is speaking for them – ‘I am your warrior. I am your justice,’ he said in a speech at a conservative forum, but his first priority has always been himself.
“The damage done by Trump is often inflicted by others. Their threats, harassment, and even violence are done in the name of Trump.
He has pardoned almost all of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, some of whom have now boasted they will acquire guns.”
She turns to Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ to address the questions of how aware Trump is of what he is doing: “knowing that his funeral oration over the body of the assassinated Caesar will stir up an angry mob, Mark Antony muses: ‘And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.’ Antony imagines Caesar’s vengeful spirit rising from the underworld to incite further violence. Not only will Caesar’s assassins be punished, but the hell of civil war will be let loose to cause widespread suffering. Precisely who Trump wants to punish appears secondary to his delight in releasing precisely those hellish dogs. Everyone is a potential enemy and a potential victim.”
Hadas then quotes Trump: “I am your retribution,” and then adds: “Nothing in Trump’s continuing story more clearly echoes the classics than this ominous melding of self with a superhuman principle of revenge. Such a merging of a mortal individual with a pitilessly abstract power like Nemesis is closer to myth than to history. Or so it would be comforting to assume.”
