While Trump has his issues, I think calling him "The Caligula" doesn't fit and is too much. The point says the following;
"The Caligula: Trump matches many of the qualities listed in the article, most notably his extreme behavior (very obvious after his 2020 defeat) and his intolerance of disagreement or things he doesn't want to hear (it's not for nothing that his own press secretary invented the phrase "Alternate Facts"). And while he's never renamed a city for himself, one need only point at all the gaudy buildings he's built with his name on them, or his frequently-expressed desire to add his face to Mount Rushmore."
Here's part of the description of the Caligula on that trope page; The Caligula will be wildly irrational, violently moody, very intolerant of being told anything he doesn't want to hear, and probably afflicted with a god complex. He may indulge in renaming cities or even the entire country after himself. To do anything the Caligula finds displeasing is to inevitably be dragged off to a grisly death or worse. Of course, this could also happen to those who have not done anything at all. Due to their continuing close proximity to the Caligula, members of the Court (decadent or otherwise) will be the primary targets of his fits of rage.
I contend that this point should be removed for the following reasons, including how for all Trump's flaws there are several traits of a Caligula that Trump does not have;
- A major argument against it is how Trump allowed freedom of the press. For all his overused cries of "fake news!", if Trump was a true Caligula, a lot of journalists and quite a few newsanchors - given how much the mainstream news media has gone after him - would be in jail or worse given their near-constant attacks on him. While there are laws in the U.S to protect Freedom of the Press, a true Caligula wouldn't care about those laws and probably even Make It Look Like an Accident.
- Caligula's are characterized by violent intolerance for opposing views; violence of the physical kind. If Trump was violent towards who opposed him, the detractor death toll would've matched the COVID death-toll.
- Putting his last name on buildings he or his company had built is debatable. It would be like calling Richard and Maurice McDonald caligulas because they named their fast food franchise McDonald's after themselves. Egotistical of Trump, most likely. Caligula, not sure. Citation needed about the desire to put his head on Mount Rushmore.
- When the CHAZ/CHOP happened in Seattle, which was technically an insurrection, Trump didn't react with immediate violence, like an actual Caligula would (even though he could've used the legal excuse of the Insurrection Act). He threatened to invoke it, but again, a true Caligula wouldn't have waited or given any time with threats.
- While he can get nasty verbally, even the people in his Cabinet who he fired replaced didn't end up imprisoned or worse.
- Trump is the first President in decades to not to start a war and actually helped create a historic peace agreement.
- If Trump really wanted to take Capitol Hill by force - as horrible and wrong as the Capitol Hill Riots were - as President he would have had better resources to call on than a mob of angry civilians, eg; the National Guard (one more reason I contend he didn't deliberately incite that riot).
- Forr all the legal wriggling Trump did at times, he tried to work within the bounds of the legal system while Caligula's tend to disregard that system... plus Trump hasn't imprisoned his opponents or executed them/had them fall to unfortunate "accidents".
I apologize if this dipped into politics, I only brought up those points to explain the reasons behind my use of a trope. I admit I can get carried away in arguments in general on any subject, I also think that - just like people who like Trump - people who hate Trump can let how they feel about him get in the way of facts. Plus, a person in power can have an ego, like Trump, but not be the Caligula.
In light of this, I suggest we drop the point of "The Caligula", what say you?