The recent anti-Trump demonstrations were styled “No Kings,” which apparently offended the president, even though he has publicly identified himself as a king on multiple occasions. Some commentators, on the other hand, have described his rule as a kind of dictatorship. What is the difference, and who is right?
A dictator, in the Roman Republic, was an eminent man who was given extraordinary powers for a very limited period of time in order to deal with an emergency. While modern dictators have tended to retain their powers for a much longer period, something of the original meaning still remains. That is why Marx described the “dictatorship of the proletariat” as a short transitional period to pure communism.
A king, on the other hand, is a permanent thing. He rules in ordinary as well as extraordinary times. He transfers his power to his son upon his death. He is expected to protect the traditional laws and customs of his realm, not to change them. Since he was the ultimate source of all land ownership in the Middle Ages, the distinction between the public and the private realm was fuzzy, to say the least.
So which does Trump resemble more? His reliance on emergency powers and his desire to make swift, dramatic changes to his country smacks of a dictatorship. It is also unlikely that he plans to pass on the presidency to his eldest son. On the other hand, Trump’s willingness to profit from his position doesn’t sound like something an upright Roman leader would do. As a result, you can make an argument either way.