Hail Emperor Donaldus Trumpus! For his is an imperial presidency

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Like most such revelations, it came to me late, which is to say early in the morning while I was still catching up, reading about the potentially disastrous effects Donald Trump’s tariffs will have on Windsor, whose lifeblood and backbone are directly connected to the American auto industry. After a week of watching the rituals and ceremonies heralding the re-installation of President Trump, the denarius suddenly dropped: This isn’t the inauguration of a president. It’s the proclamation of an emperor. Never mind the oligarchs of Silicon Valley. This is an imperial presidency.

Ave Imperator Caesar Trumpus! Hail Donald!

You think I’m exaggerating. You think it’s still early days. But the signs are all there. No president has ever resembled an emperor more.

Let’s start with the striking of two cryptocoins, one bearing the likeness of Emperor Donald (and the words “Fight! Fight! Fight!”) and the other the likeness of the Empress Melania. This has happened, already. On Wednesday, TRUMP was the 25th most valuable cryptocoin in the world, although its value was already plunging.

Does this ring any bells? That’s a big imperial thing, to have your face on a coin. Nero did it, Marcus Aurelius did it. Roman coins thus doubled as propaganda devices, reminding everyone who was the boss. Julius Caesar was the first living Roman emperor to put his mug on a coin, and the Donaldus is the most recent emperor to do so.

Then there was the public (televised) signing of countless decrees – er, sorry, executive orders, with Mr. Trump squeakily scratching and etching out his mountainous signature with a subsequently gifted imperial Sharpie, and then displaying his signature for all to see. The public display of his bold tagline is an imperialistic gesture in and of itself: the presentation of the herald, the seal of the emperor! In ancient Rome, they were often called emergency decrees, just as many of the orders Mr. Trump signed Tuesday were “emergency” orders – to halt any further action at the border, to “drill, baby, drill” etc.

The visual topper, of course, was Elon Musk’s “salute” onstage at Mr. Trump’s rally in the Capital One arena the night of the inauguration. Many onlookers quite reasonably interpreted it as a Nazi salute, because hey, that’s what it looked like. Mr. Musk’s subsequent trolling – when he pushed back on the idea that it was a Nazi salute but did not quite deny it – was obviously intentional, as the alternate explanation, amid much distracting debate, emerged – no, no, it wasn’t a Nazi sieg heil, it was a “Roman” salute, just like the ones Jacques-Louis David painted in 1784 in his famous painting Oath of the Horatii! And indeed Mr. Musk’s arm-thrust was that too, Consul Elon hailing his new emperor.

Or is that too far-fetched? It sure doesn’t feel too far-fetched. To celebrate their election victory, Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk and their cronies attended an over-the-top UFC smackdown at Madison Square Garden. Spectacle – shock and awe – is the name of the game in 2025 in Trumpian America, just as it was in imperial Rome. The action in the Forum distracted the inhabitants of Rome from the poverty and carnage in the streets.

And then of course there is the actual imperialism that has already – um, distinguished, is that the word I am seeking? – the 47th presidency/emperorship. Trumpus plans to buy Greenland and conquer Panama. He has already declared the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accord and drug cartels to be enemies of the American empire, something imperial Rome did a lot to its neighbours to keep the hooligans and barbarians at bay. Emperor Trump’s most recent decree has been to levy taxes on all the provinces of America, on this side of the Gulf of America and in Europe, in the form of a demand that they contribute 5 per cent of their collective wealth to their armies (even though America itself contributes less, percentage-wise). But never mind the details. The Emperor has decreed it.

And of course there is the biggest dictum of all, Emperor Trump’s declaration that he will subjugate Canada – the new 51st state (his description) led by Governor Trudeau – by economic force. The ostensible reason is that Canada is letting illegal immigrants and fentanyl cross its border into America, but the amounts of each are so minuscule as to seem like window-dressing. The whole episode is baffling and woe betide me to search for logic in the chambers of the human heart. But what if the Emperor actually wants our oil, would like our minerals but especially, desperately needs our water? And so until he gets it, we will have to face a 25-per-cent tariff on everything we sell to the United States. Given that we sell $1.9-billion worth of stuff to the Americans every single day – about a fifth of our gross domestic product – and that we’ll have to put up corresponding tariffs of our own, we will be in a very tight spot, and will have to bend to the Emperor’s will.

That, of course, is the most painful wound the new American imperium has dealt us. It has forced us to recognize and admit how dependent we are on America, on its economy and its protection. There are ways to reduce that dependency, of course – easier interprovincial trade, new trading partners (some of whom, such as eager China, would invite further retaliation from the Imperium in Washington), more innovation and productivity, more self-reliance, national military service … but that is a long, long road. In the meantime, we will have to adapt to abusive decrees from the imperial palace known as Mr. Trump’s White House, the way Rome’s provinces did.

But take heart in this, my fellow Gaulians, we who labour under the long and suffocating hand of the oppressor Emperor! The thing is, it takes a lot of effort to maintain an imperial empire. (It also takes a lot of concentrated attention, which Caesar Donaldus is famously short of.) It took more than 300 years to finally collapse, but the Roman empire eventually crumbled. A central cause was overspending, and Emperor Donald knows how to do that: The first Trump presidency added US$8.4-trillion to the U.S. national debt, making him the third most indebting president ever, after George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln.

All kinds of bad consequences followed Rome’s extravagance: Its finances were depleted and wracked by inflation, while the gap between the rich and the poor grew wider and wider. Sound familiar? Even the very wealthy got tired of Rome’s imperial whims and set up estates of their own (see Trump backer Peter Thiel and seasteading). A labour shortage – not enough immigrants! – wrenched the Roman economy to a halt. And governing an expanded empire and keeping the boonies under control meant an expansively expensive military (and we all now know how inadept Pete Hegseth, Trump’s new Defence Secretary, is at managing numbers). Corruption – another specialty of Emperor Donald – made running the empire more expensive and even dangerous: At one point, Rome had 20 leaders in 75 years. Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump are already having disagreements.

But ultimately it was immigration that brought Rome down. The Eurasian Huns invaded Europe and drove the Visigoths, a separate people, down to the border of the Roman Empire. The emperors let the refugee Visigoths in, but treated them like crap: One ancient historian, Ammianus Marcellinus (I have the History Channel to thank for these details), claims the Romans forced the starving Goths to trade their children into slavery in exchange for dog meat. The Goths eventually rose up against the emperor.

Will the huddled masses of the Trumpus imperium go that far? Probably not. But however Mr. Trump’s undoing comes about, his immigration policy will play a big part.

I have to admit, I am keen to see what happens to Emperor Trumpus. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.