Two months into his second term, President Donald Trump has unleashed a frenetic wave of policies, rapidly remaking America in his image. This essay argues that he seeks a fundamental, illiberal shift towards personalized power, echoing Bonapartist transitions in world history. If unchecked, this could lead to tenure elongation or even self-perpetuation, with dire implications for fledgling democracies that emulate the U.S. model. Presented in two parts, the essay examines: 1) the historical and theoretical roots of Bonapartism, to contextualize Trump’s authoritarian project; and 2) the Bonapartist echoes in Trumpism and the potential for global democratic erosion.
By Chudi Okoye
Karl Marx was only partly right when, borrowing from his friend Friedrich Engels to critique Hegel in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852), he claimed that history repeats itself, first as “tragedy,” then as “farce.” The United States of America, today under the presidency of Donald J. Trump, is witnessing something akin to a Bonapartist re-enactment, an Eighteenth Brumaire of our time, but there is little that’s farcical about it. If anything, history is here repeating itself with force.
Donald Trump was once perceived as an improbable presidential candidate, and even after winning his first term, he was in some corners considered a comical aberration in the annals of the U.S. presidency. Yet now, at the onset of his second term (secured by a plurality of the popular vote and a decisive Electoral College victory), he appears intent on an illiberal remaking of America, with a clear desire to impose an imperial presidency on the country. In this, he mirrors the path paved in 19th-century France by the famous Napoleon Bonaparte and his nephew, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, both of whom dismantled republican governments and erected autocratic empires. Like these historical precedents, Trump’s authoritarian project is propelled not merely by personal ambition but by deeper societal forces: a self-seeking elite class seemingly willing to sacrifice democracy to preserve its privileges; disaffected sections of the electorate seeking a ‘strongman’ to salve their primordial anxieties; and institutions that, far from resisting his overreach, rather rationalize and even enable it. These forces—reactionary nationalism, economic dislocation, institutional decay, and elite complicity—make the Trumpian trajectory anything but farcical.
I described some of these social forces in a recent essay, arguing that “internal stresses are multiplying and manifesting in the United States,” along with external geopolitical pressures, similar to “what caused the collapse of ancient Rome and Pax Romana.” These, arguably, may be aiding the authoritarian impulse in Trump’s America.
To understand how this transformation is unfolding, we must revisit Marx’s analysis of Bonapartism. I had invoked this concept in an earlier essay, written in July 2024 before the November election that ushered in Trump’s second term, wherein I dissected the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity. I argued in the piece that the ruling reflected the ardent yearning of the American right “for an unbounded president able to take ‘bold and unhesitating action,’” as Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, had put it. As I framed the argument:
It is a yearning for ‘Caesarism’ or ‘Bonapartism’, a leap from Locke to Hobbes. It is an argument for a singular, concentrated authority able to impose order on a cacophonous, conflict-bound, post-constitutional society. The American right, probably upset by the ideological war which it imagines it is losing to the liberals and progressives, wants an imperial presidency, a Deus ex Machina, to slow down progress and return America to a primordial social order, or as Trump’s campaign slogan says: to “Make America Great Again.”
Marx’s analysis in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon shows clearly how democratic institutions, in times of crisis, can be manipulated to manufacture an autocracy. Hence, my further effort here to leverage that work as a way to understand the Trumpian phenomenon in America. But Trumpism does not merely mirror 19th-century France; it resonates with other historical and contemporary instances of authoritarian transition, from the collapse of the ancient Roman Republic to 20th-century Weimar Germany, to present-day Hungary, Russia, and Brazil. More ominously, as I signposted in concluding my July essay, its potential success could impact fledgling democracies modeled on the American archetype, particularly those where a history of military rule and weak institutions makes the country especially vulnerable to authoritarian contagion.
In this essay, I examine the Bonapartist trend in Trump’s America, probing what it portends for the future of democratic governance around the world.
Bonapartism and Its Parallels
The specter of Bonapartism has haunted human history as a recurring pattern of democratic decay, where governing institutions meant to serve the people as sovereign citizens are instead captured and repurposed to consolidate power in the hands of an authoritarian leader. Marx’s celebrated work, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, was an attempt to understand how such a transformation could happen in 19th-century France.
The term Eighteenth Brumaire itself refers to the coup d’état of 9 November 1799, when Napoleon Bonaparte seized power, dismantling the unstable Directory (the governing committee of the First French Republic) and establishing in its place another body known as the Consulate. That coup date equated to 18 Brumaire, in Year VIII under the short-lived French Republican calendar, originally devised to mark a radical break from monarchy but now ironically used as a reference point for its return. Napoleon’s bloodless coup effectively ended the French Revolution that had started in 1789 and would soon lead to his coronation as Emperor of the French, bringing revolutionary France full circle. Over half a century later, Napoleon’s nephew, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, followed a similar path. Elected president of the French Republic in 1848 under a constitution that barred reelection, and having failed in his attempt to remove this restriction, Louis-Napoléon faced the prospect of leaving office. To retain power, he orchestrated a self-coup on 2 December 1851, dissolving the National Assembly, arresting opponents, and using plebiscitary legitimacy to proclaim himself Emperor Napoleon III the following year. The coup was launched symbolically on the anniversary of his revered uncle Napoleon Bonaparte’s coronation (on 2 December 1804) and the latter’s famous victory in the Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805), as if to justify the usurpation and his acquisition of dictatorial powers. With the coup, France transitioned from democratic to imperial rule.
It was this event that Marx dissected in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, using it to illustrate how history can repeat itself—though not as a perfect mirror image, but as a distortion shaped by shifting social forces. But the relevance of Marx’s analysis extends far beyond his era. From ancient Rome to 20th-century Europe and today’s global political landscape, history reveals a familiar cycle: democratic republics born in crisis, navigating their internal contradictions, only to succumb to a figure who claims to rescue them from their own instability. In this, Trump’s America is not an anomaly—it is the latest iteration of an old story.
Bonapartism, as Marx framed it, emerges when the traditional ruling class is unable to maintain control through the usual mechanisms of governance, while the working masses lack the organization or coherence to assert their own power. In such a moment of crisis, an ambitious leader can present himself as a unifying force, transcending the divisions of class and ideology, speaking directly to the ‘people’ while simultaneously reinforcing elite interests. Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, like his more famous uncle before him, exploited these conditions to dismantle the French Republic, positioning himself as the indispensable leader who alone could restore order.
But the origins of this phenomenon stretch further back in history. The fall of the Roman Republic offers one of the earliest and most instructive parallels. In the first century BCE, Rome was wracked by internal strife, populist demagogues, and institutional paralysis. The Republic’s governing structures, designed for a smaller, more homogeneous polity, proved incapable of managing the vast empire Rome had become. The resulting instability gave rise to ambitious generals who wielded their armies as political tools. Among them, Julius Caesar emerged as a charismatic leader, championing the common people against a corrupt senatorial elite. However, his ascent to power culminated in his appointment as dictator perpetuo (dictator for life), a move that alarmed the Senate. Fearing the end of the Republic, a faction of senators assassinated him in 44 BCE. Yet, rather than restoring republican rule, Caesar’s death only hastened its demise. Within decades, his grand-nephew Augustus consolidated power, dismantling the Republic entirely while maintaining the façade of restoring stability. The lesson was clear: once institutions lose their ability to mediate power effectively, a strongman can step in—not by overtly destroying democracy, but by subverting it from within.
Fast forward to 20th-century Europe, and the same dynamics played out with chilling regularity. The collapse of Weimar Germany in the 1930s followed a trajectory eerily reminiscent of Rome and 19th-century France. Weimar, plagued by economic turmoil and political fragmentation, became fertile ground for a leader who promised to transcend division and restore national greatness. Adolf Hitler, much like Louis-Napoléon, did not seize power through outright revolution; he was legally appointed, using the very institutions of democracy to undermine it. Step by step, through emergency decrees, suppression of dissent, and the gradual erosion of checks and balances, he transformed a fragile republic into a totalitarian state.
Beyond Europe, Bonapartist tendencies have surfaced in other regions, adapting to local conditions. In Argentina, Juan Perón rose to power in the 1940s by appealing directly to the working masses while consolidating authority through military backing and state-controlled media. His brand of populist authoritarianism—Peronism—proved enduring, shaping Argentine politics long after his rule. Similarly, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines used democratic elections to gain power but later declared martial law in 1972, dismantling institutional checks and ruling with an iron grip under the pretense of national stability. Like Napoleon III, both leaders invoked popular mandates to justify the erosion of democratic norms, demonstrating the adaptability of Bonapartist rule across different political and cultural landscapes.
These historical patterns of autocratization are not confined to the distant past. In the 21st century, leaders from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have followed variations of the Bonapartist model. Each rose to power within a democratic framework, each claimed to be a tribune of the people against corrupt elites, and each gradually hollowed out democratic institutions to entrench personal rule. Orbán, for instance, systematically reshaped Hungary’s judiciary and media landscape to ensure his party’s perpetual dominance, all while maintaining the façade of electoral legitimacy. Putin, with a fearsome military and security background, has consolidated his grip through constitutional manipulations and the suppression of opposition, ensuring that Russia’s democracy remains a democracy in name only.
In this broader historical landscape, the trajectory of Trump’s America takes on an ominous significance. Though with a mixed record of defending democratic ideals abroad and itself often rated as a ‘flawed democracy,’ the United States has nonetheless been a beacon of this form, pioneering key institutional innovations for liberal constitutional governance. If, despite this legacy, America is now lurching toward autocracy, what does that portend for the future of democratic governance?
I will turn to this question in Part 2 of the essay.
