Bonaparte

Elba, 1814. After 15 years in power, a coalition of European monarchies bested the self-proclaimed Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and marooned him upon the island of Elba. His sentence for his wars against the other European states was a life confined to the tiny Mediterranean island, a lesser sentence thanks in part to his allies in Genoa and Italy, who negotiated on his behalf.

No state, no throne, no army—Napoleon was offered little hope at a redemption or a comeback. As dire as his circumstances may have been then, his meteoric rise to power, culminating in 1799, seemed similarly improbable.

Born in 1769, Bonaparte came into the world only shortly after France’s annexation of his home of Corsica, a Mediterranean island between Italy and France. His family was minor nobility and was able to send him to France for a military education. An outsider, Bonaparte gained national renown for scoring crushing victories over the royalists—those who supported the reestablishment of the French monarchy. The royalists were notably composed of aristocrats—the elites of that day, including those monarchs and aristocrats of other European powers.

His victories over royalists in Toulon and Paris and victories abroad in Italy and Egypt endeared him to the public to the point where he was able to seize power through a coup d’etat in 1799.

Italy and Egypt were just the beginning. Napoleon soon embarked on a cross-continental crusade. From Spain to Switzerland and the Netherlands to Austria, the emperor scored a string of victories, but his brazenness would be his demise.

Following a disastrous invasion of Russia, a coalition of European powers defeated Napoleon at Leipzig then invaded France in 1814. Bonaparte abdicated his throne, and he was exiled to Elba, where he was allowed to keep his title of “emperor,” yet for an island of only 12,000.

For ten months, Bonaparte remained on the island, but, increasingly restless and also aware that the Bourbon monarchy in France was unpopular, the emperor plotted a return.

Napoleon returned to France on March the 1st of 1815, landing in Golfe-Juan with approximately 1,100 soldiers. Upon word of his arrival, a regiment of royalist soldiers were sent to arrest him, but instead of fleeing, the man stepped forward alone, opened his coat, and declared, “If any of you will shoot your Emperor, here I am.”

Those soldiers joined him. And, with each regiment that was sent to seize him, the pattern repeated, snowballing his political phoenix-from-the-ashes ascent until his climactic arrival in Paris some two weeks later.

The king fled the city, and Napoleon was welcomed back by the people without a shot fired.

But his enemies were many, and they would not rest.

One-hundred days later, an alliance of European powers, French royalists, and French aristocrats would see to his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo—snuffing out his second reign after only 110 total days. Napoleon was subsequently banished to the island of St. Helena—1,200 miles from the nearest land mass.

He died there six years later.

Trump

Mar-a-lago, 2021. After four years in power, Donald J. Trump lost his bid for re-election for the office of the United States presidency. A coalition of tech moguls, European powers, coastal aristocracy, the People’s Republic of China, D.C. establishment powers, media interests, and Ivory Tower activists triumphed over the New York-born billionaire.

In a harrowing, three-month bid to hold out against his antagonists and remain in office, the president cast doubt on electoral outcomes and processes until, on the day of the certification of his defeat, a group of rabble rousers poured into the U.S. Capitol on the 6th of January—with some engaging in political violence.

The riot received national attention, and Trump’s political adversaries were quick to pin the blame solely upon him.

Fourteen days later, Trump departed from the office with a tarnished reputation, returning home to his estate in south Florida as a pariah to friend and foe alike.

His party cast him aside, and his political career, of only five years, had reached its apparent terminus.

However improbable a return seemed, his rise to the presidency in the first place felt equally as miraculous.

Born to a real estate developer in New York, Trump mentored under his father and many prominent businessmen and lawyers. After a business education at the University of Pennsylvania, Trump returned to New York City and began his trade, taking after his father.

Trump found remarkable success in his business, amassing a wealth of hundreds of millions early on. He gained national notoriety, appearing on talk shows and comedy shows, in movies and television series, and as an entertainer at sporting events. All the while, the man flirted with political aspirations, critiquing the way established elites conducted the nation’s affairs as far back as the 1980s.

But while he publicly toyed with a presidential bid, the man never pursued one nor did he make a run at a lower office.

After years of clashing over policy and a birth certificate, a feud between himself and the then-president Barack Obama culminated at a dinner for the press in 2011. The president (and others) effectuated a public humiliation of the businessman for his attempt to discredit his national origin, a prerequisite for the office. Trump sat through the entire ritual and was visibly not amused.

Four years later, Trump announced his bid to replace that man as president. In his announcement, he derided a class of elites who had profited off the managed decline of the country and outlined his vision for how he wished to make America great again.

Trump did not train his sling solely upon the sitting president either. Despite declaring candidacy as a Republican, the New Yorker harshly rebuked partisans of all stripes for their weakness, corruption, and severe lack of intelligence—or, common sense.

He rejected the conventional wisdom of his party, and for it, he was excoriated and made the principal target of the 17 other candidates for the Republican nomination.

Starting low in the single digits, Trump emerged as the frontrunner of the field by the time of the first Republican primary debate. He publicly barbed with established figures of the party, mocking not only their political decisions but also their personal instincts—and, at times, their physical attributes.

Rather than repudiate the man, primary voters increasingly took to the man for his frankness, honesty, and policy vision. Americans recognized that Trump did not act like other politicians, just as he claimed, and for it, they flocked to him over the party’s established leaders.

One-by-one, his Republican opponents bowed out until, at last, he had captured the field early in the summer of 2016. By that time, he had also captured international attention and ire.

Europeans opposed him for his critique of their contribution to the NATO military alliance. Leading religious figures opposed him for his messy marital life. International business interests opposed him for his deregulatory policies. Establishment Republicans opposed him for his immigration views and personal affronts. Media outlets opposed him for his boisterous allegations against their failure to uphold their journalistic oaths. And Democrats, of course, opposed him because he was a Republican.

In short order, he had become the most divisive man in America and, in many circles, far-and-away the most hated. But, he also became the nominee of one of the nation’s two premier political parties.

Opposite him was perhaps the embodiment of all he criticized. A former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton could only best be described as one of the D.C. established elites that Trump so often derided.

Across 20 years, Clinton served in Washington, D.C., in some political capacity. She had been anointed years before the formal process of selecting a nominee for the Democratic Party had even begun. Her coronation had been considered a foregone conclusion.

Fatefully, it did not end up being so. A populist political rival challenged the elite-aligned Clinton, and only through the assistance of political insiders moving against the rival on Mrs. Clinton’s behalf did she triumph. This callous move by the DNC establishment poisoned themselves against many voters and lended credence to Trump’s claims about corruption and insider trading.

Controversies came one after another as the man campaigned, seemingly incapable of not setting traps for himself. But, each time that he did, his enemies seized upon them—often (grossly) mischaracterizing the matter. However, for each time that they did this, he seemed to only grow more justified in his claims and stronger in his popular fervor. False portrayals by his opponents only assisted his claims and were instrumental in fueling his campaign.

Social pressure and coercion, however, kept his popularity obscured. Few prominent Americans, even within Congress, supported his bid. The aforementioned Europeans, business interests, media outlets, activists, and even some religious leaders and establishment Republicans all favored the former Secretary of State in a matchup with the political upstart. National and state polling suggested a landslide for the former First Lady. So much so that, on the eve of the election for the office, the idea of his victory had become a point of humor for many.

However, by the nine o’clock hour on election night, it became clear that the pundits that had predicted a spectacular implosion were wrong. By midnight, it became clear who had won.

Trump overcame seemingly insurmountable odds and innumerable adversaries to assume the highest office in the land and, in the eyes of many, the most powerful in the world.

Despite extending an olive branch to them upon his victory, Trump suffered many enemies nonetheless. They did not relent in their assault against him, and they only grew more enraged and even more assured of their moral standing over him. His crass candor and headstrong politique infuriated those who had sought his defeat and fueled an unparalleled campaign of resistance against his administration.

For three years, his opponents accused him of being a servant of the leader of Russia, which spawned a $200 million investigation that did not find such a relationship. They excoriated his judicial nominees, slandering one in particular with egregious and unsubstantiated allegations of coercive impropriety with a woman many years prior. His media adversaries mischaracterized his actions and his words, spawning misconceptions that live on in the minds of many to this day, such as the “Very Fine People” hoax. They even pushed forward a nakedly partisan impeachment for a quid pro quo offer with a Ukrainian official for an investigation into the affairs of the former vice president’s son, which later were substantiated and confirmed.

Despite this, at the outset of 2020, Trump appeared poised for re-election. A recovered economy, a secured border with Mexico, and a stable international scene soared confidence in his leadership, but it was not to last.

In March of that year, the nation and the world froze as a viral pandemic preyed upon the peace. Political leaders shuttered the public, confining them to their private residences. Commerce, education, life itself—all of it was required to halt for fear of great loss of human life.

The global economy cratered; the children ceased to learn; and, despite the lockdowns meant to protect them, people died anyway.

Trump rejected the international consensus, claiming boldly that the world must chart a course to charge on with life anyway, while also ensuring the protection of the vulnerable.

His enemies saw this as their golden opportunity.

For the next eight months, a collusion between tech companies, media outlets, political leaders, established powers in Washington, and the Democratic Party unleashed an unrelenting brigade against the president. They tied a failing economy to his leadership and each death to his callousness.

On top of this, Ivory Tower activists promulgated riots across the nation that summer, covered favorably by tech’s social media and the elite’s national media in spite of their claims on the pandemic.

What’s more, the rules of procedure for the election in key states (e.g., Pennsylvania) were amended in violation of the law and of constitutions by his political enemies.

Cities burned. Businesses closed. Hundreds of millions withered, isolated in their homes.

His support crashed amid a world thrown into turmoil. Trump’s prospects of victory had almost entirely vanished by the time of election day.

The only saving grace to his re-elect effort was the radicalness that his opponents adopted. Lockdown measures, including arrests for being at public beaches and tiplines to report your neighbors, and law enforcement reform, most prominently the abolition of the police, drove some moderates back into the open arms of the president.

Even despite a historic overperformance on election “month,” Trump came up short and, as already told, was ultimately exiled to his home in south Florida.

Fortunately for him and unfortunately for his enemies, Trump had enemies incapable of recognizing his superpower: He grows stronger the more unfairly he is treated.

It was not enough for his enemies to defeat him politically. No, they sought to ruin him personally and financially, too.

And, they chose to do this at a time when he was at his weakest, late fall of 2022.

While the nation continued to suffer the pandemic lockdowns and the new consequences of the successor administration, the government and its allies brought suit against the former president, seeking to seize his assets, drain his coffers, and jail him.

In November of that year, the president had announced his third bid for the nation’s highest office but had found himself playing second fiddle in his own party.

But his political opponents saved him by announcing investigations, introducing felony charges, raiding his home, and dragging him into a jail in Georgia for a mugshot.

Each step his opponents took down this road only fueled his revitalization. Every blow struck upon him made him rise higher in defiance until, at last, he had won back both the hearts and devotion of those he had lost—most decisively on May the 31st of 2024 when convicted on 34 felony counts of falsification of business records.

Aiding this revivification was his successor. The subsequent administration oversaw a period of diplomatic setbacks and war; inflation and lagging unemployment; crime and unfettered migration; and conspiracy. The “emperor,” so to speak, had no clothes; yet, the media interests who had so vehemently opposed Trump could not find it within their honor to announce the successor’s nakedness, for it would only serve to aid their enemy.

For it, they suffered, and for it, Trump gained. Trust in the media continued on its decade-long course, dwindling down further as their slanted coverage continued, while Trump's poll numbers rose steadily.

By the spring of 2024, polling showed President Biden lagging behind the former president considerably, both across the country and in the pivotal swing states. In a desperate bid to reverse course, the successor extended an invitation for debate, set for late June, which Trump accepted. Anxiety built. At the prospect of a rematch, certainly, but even more so, in what state the president would appear.

On June the 27th, the veil was pulled back, and the state of the president was laid bare to all of the world.

It became clear, as if it was ever in doubt, that for four years—if not longer—the allies of the president had covered up his cognitive decline. Unable to deny the president's state any longer, the press pivoted, pretending to act shocked at the "sudden" and "shocking" revelation.

Stories began leaking about the president’s inability to communicate, to conduct a full day of work, or to meet with other leaders. The so-called “cheapfake” videos that had demonstrated Biden’s decline were entirely vindicated, and the media and Democratic politicians who had abdicated in their duty to hold the president accountable—for the good of the nation—now looked plainly corrupt, affirming everything the former president had ever said about them.

Trump’s victory now seemed assured, and despair among his antagonists reached a fever pitch. Their nominee had failed, and the backup had long been considered a nonstarter.

Then, shots rang out in July.

Standing behind a podium at a rally in Pennsylvania, the former president made a fateful, unwitting turn of the head just in time to avoid the lethal blow of three bullets shot from a rifle.

With blood streaming down his face, he rose from the ground among his guards, raising his fist in the air, yelling, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Previously assured, his victory now seemed guaranteed as former foes met his defiant display with endorsements, plaudits, and well-wishes. For the first time, it had become socially acceptable to commend the president and even affirm him as a supporter.

His successor soon quit the race in favor of the vice president, and despite turning up the rhetoric against him and his supporters, she only served to bring his popularity to new heights.

Still, Trump could count many among his enemies, and on the eve of his third and final election, the outcome seemed to hang in the balance. The race—it was told—was a coin toss.

The truth of this claim swiftly unraveled as the election results poured in from across the country. The former president was welcomed back not just by those who had previously supported him but by many of those who had opposed and even hated him. A tide of red bloomed from sea to sea, and three months later, Trump took his oath of office, becoming only the second American president in the country’s 248 years to win non-consecutive terms.

Now, more than 100 days into his second term, Trump can rest assured his second stint outlasted Napoleon’s.