444 Comments
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Susan Kice's avatar

So much good info in a small comedic article. The press could not do this-even without the humor! Thx Andy!

Andy Borowitz's avatar

Thank you, Susan! The mostly forgotten Napoleon III is a reminder that someday Trump will be mostly forgotten, too.

Melissa K's avatar

From your mouth to the sky daddy's ear.😁

Abby From Maine's avatar

Soon, please!

Kathy Roeske's avatar

Waiting for the Big Beautiful Obituary.

Abby From Maine's avatar

YES! I don't drink, but I bought a little bottle of Meyer's rum (because it smells good!) and a can of frozen OJ to celebrate when the good news is announced! :-D

Kathaleen Reed's avatar

Me too! I've got the prosecco ready and the Big Beautiful Playlist ready to go when the time comes!

Susan Kice's avatar

Maybe we shouldn't forget this WORST time in our history, after slavery! Maybe, we should make sure to teach the stupidity of this president and his administration to our future generations. Maybe the humiliation of his presidency will be a long-lasting lesson!

Al Keim's avatar

Trump Day, April 1.

Glynn Kegley's avatar

But the scars will remain for a generation or two at least. Apparently not the lesson, sadly.

Cathy (W. Michigan)'s avatar

I’m only sorry I won’t be around to see that.

Annie D Stratton's avatar

Every morning I wake up hoping...

Rose Edgar's avatar

I wish he will be forgotten but his big mouth lives on forever. He’s been torturing us with his pack of lies well before he ever became president and will continue until he’s dead! Here’s to hoping sooner rather than later.

Sara Toye's avatar

May it please be soon.

Mary-Jean Miner's avatar

I hope to see that day when ALL traces, or even the mentioning his name, are deservedly obliterated. Oh happy day!

Skepticat's avatar

Could "someday" puhleeeeze be this afternoon?

Susie's avatar

Oh please please please please please!!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. 🤣😜

Lynne's avatar

Caligula. Rotten in every way possible.

Pradnya Sikand's avatar

Or Nero ! Completely deranged ! He fiddled while Rome burned and Trump golfs while setting the world on fire !

Linda Mitchell, KCMO's avatar

Sorry: the whole fiddling thing is a myth. But he did apparently set Rome on fire and used the destruction to build his Golden Palace.

ladtodt's avatar

Replace fiddling with piddling and you got it right.

Melissa K's avatar

I was gonna say Nero as well.

Pradnya Sikand's avatar

Great minds think alike! 😉

It's Come To This's avatar

Well, Caligula at least appointed his horse proconsul. I'm betting many horses are smarter than (and certainly less cruel) than Miller, Kegsbreath, Noem, Lutnick and the lot.

M Q's avatar

Was that horse the "stable genius"?

BOBD's avatar

Yeah, the stable genius is as genius as half a horse...

Randall Sorenson's avatar

And we know which half of the horse.

Susan Fernbach's avatar

That’s MISTER Ed Trump to you. 😉

BOBD's avatar

At least Caligula had the sense to appoint the whole horse, unlike the American electorate.

Nancy's avatar

We got one better. The back end of the horse is currently occupying the Oval Office.

Linda Mitchell, KCMO's avatar

And also deranged. And was obsessed with his horse, which had a bigger penis than anyone he knew. And he had sex with his sister (no children so couldn't pedo after them).

Linda Mitchell, KCMO's avatar

Probably not--she and her other son, Drusus, were probably murdered by Tiberius. But another fun fact: Caligula got his nickname (Caligula is what was called a "cognomen" as the Roman naming system repeated family names for all male offspring so nicknames were necessary) while his dad Germanicus was in the army. It means "Bootikins" because he loved running around as a toddler in a pair of red leather boots. Another fun fact: although sons got all their fathers' names (such as Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Caligula's actual name) girls only got their father's nomen (clan name). Which is why all the women in the imperial family were named either Livia or Antonia. And Caesar was Gaius Julius's cognomen. It means "Baldy."

Pradnya Sikand's avatar

Thank you for all these fun facts ! I love history and I need to revisit Suetonius and Tacitus !

Mary Gilbert's avatar

Very interesting history lesson-thanks!

Sue's avatar

More like Nero, who took advantage of the great fire of Rome to aopropriate a huge chunk of the city for his over-the-top imperial residence, which he called (wait for it) the Golden House.

Pradnya Sikand's avatar

Please don’t give Trump any ideas ! 😂White House will become Golden House with a flourish of his magic Sharpie ! 😂

Pam Birkenfeld's avatar

A brilliant column! This is something I never knew, and I suspect many never knew. Such an apt comparison!

Andy Borowitz's avatar

Thank you!

Cherilyn Parsons's avatar

Let's let Trump compare himself to Napoleon 1 and then be exiled to Alcatraz (with sharks still around the island in the San Francisco Bay). Doesn't he want to turn that tourist site into a prison again? Parfait!

Irna Gadd's avatar

Great idea, and I LOVE the “Parfait “!!

Cherilyn Parsons's avatar

I'm from the Bay Area but live in Paris now, so c'est normal pour moi!

crazybirder's avatar

Alligator Alcatraz!!!

John Silas "Si" Hopkins, III's avatar

No shark would touch him. Professional courtesy.

Sue T's avatar

The mention of Trump's attendance at the New York Military Academy makes me nauseous. My brother was sent to that boarding school in the 70s due to his behavior, as were many of the boys there. It was a place for bullies to abuse younger children. My brother told me stories of older cadets being in charge of younger ones, and physically abusing them. The perfect place for a bully. It is not a place to be proud of.

Andy Borowitz's avatar

Trump threw his 4’11” roommate out a window.

L B Rose's avatar

One good reason for King Con to hide all his school records. Isn't interesting that he requires all of his past endeavors as a pretend human being to be locked away from the world, but requires similar info about everyone else. Truly a model of the hypocrisy of the GOP.

Annie D Stratton's avatar

I wonder how much that cost Daddy Trump to cover up. This family is even sicker than I thought.

Paul Snyderman's avatar

When I was in High School, a neighbor's son was sent to the Military Academy in Pennsylvania. He had "gotten a girl in trouble" (so quaint) and part of the resolution of the "trouble" was that she spent some time away from home with an aunt and uncle and he went to the Academy for several years. Not sure this has anything to do with DJT, of course.

Steve Newman's avatar

It certainly does if he came back a twisted power hungry delusional twisted POTUS.

Eileen's avatar

Also true of a classmate’s brother who was sent there in the late sixties due to incorrigible behavior although I do not believe he abused anyone.

jill russell's avatar

PS thanks Andy for another brilliant column. You are indeed a beacon of light for us all in this endless sea of hate and vitriol coming from our current government.

Andy Borowitz's avatar

Thank you, Jill!

KChris's avatar

Yes, in my saves to reread on repeat when all this gets me edgy and I need a laugh and a lesson. Andy always delivers!!

Lorenzo's avatar

I wonder, how did we get here?

Frances López's avatar

A large % of the American electorate does not vote. Apathy is a killer.

Erik Bruun's avatar

Does Foghorn Leghorn count?

Sandi's avatar

Son, I say, son, yes. Yes he does.

Paul Ehrenzeller's avatar

The role of Foghorn Leghorn is already taken by Senator John Kennedy. Oh wait, Mr. Hainey from Green Acres. Never mind!

Susie's avatar

Hey! I adore Foghorn Leghorn. But, yeah. I guess I see it….

Stacy1946's avatar

Napoleon III's coup gave Marx the opportunity to write, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." Come to think of it, "farce" is a pretty charitable way to describe the Trump regime.

Andy Borowitz's avatar

That Marx quote sums up the N3 (and Trump) situations perfectly.

Ann Caswell's avatar

Marx wrote of the Napoleons: The first time was tragedy, the second time was farce. Of DJT I say: The first time was farce, the second time is tragedy.

John Silas "Si" Hopkins, III's avatar

The Trump voters should have heeded the old saw -- Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me.

Clifford Peterson's avatar

Napoleon the pastry -- flaky puff pastry with a lot of fat.

Sue O'Hara's avatar

But the pastry is usually tasty, while everything about the current regime sends one to the vomitorium...

Irna Gadd's avatar

Apt comparison, Clifford.

John Silas "Si" Hopkins, III's avatar

Or a puff pastry -- one filled with a pufferfish or a puff adder.

Chris Edwards's avatar

Satan, but without the charm.

Susie's avatar

Snort. Chortle.

Scott Helmers's avatar

Frankly, I am at a loss. I cannot conjure a thought of any past leader of a polity as ignorant, corrupt, self adulating, mean, and as destructive of that polity who nevertheless maintained a significant following of mesmerized, slavish persons. While intensely reviled by reasonable persons, Trump has maintained a hold of which I cannot think of an historical parallel. Trump may stand out in history as uniquely and all encomnpassingly horrible. I know many will mention Hitler, Carigula, and Nero, but somehow Trump is disastrous in his own peculiar and perhaps unprecedented way.

Susie's avatar

Well articulated.

WENDL Kornfeld's avatar

Mussolini, but doesn't speak Italian. Can't really speak English, either, now that I think about it.

Jay F's avatar

Well, he’s not a political figure, he’s not even a real person, but, though less likable, Trump sometimes reminds me of the W.C. Fields character Larsen E Whipsnade (You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man.) i have always thought that Fields would be the perfect actor to portray Trump.

Jan Fabiyi's avatar

I’ve come to think of Trump as D.T.Barnum. And the suckers are the MAGA faithful.

Lynn Hammonds's avatar

TRump supposedly admires PT Barnum.

Betsy Lovell Arsenault's avatar

YES!!! Love the nickel sequence in his movies—also apt for Trump.

Annie D Stratton's avatar

Unfortunately, Field's is dead. We're still waiting on Trump. But I've see one or two Trump acolytes who might fit the role, at least physically. Don't think they have the range, though. Too bad Marlon Brando is unavailable too. He's the one actor that could pull off playing Trump as a believable character in all his extremes.

John Silas "Si" Hopkins, III's avatar

With the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges as his Cabinet.

Barbara Marling's avatar

Andy, bravo!! As a former undergraduate “returning” student of history I sat through many lectures following a thread to a conclusion for many years and I must congratulate you on having captured the absolute essence of the ultimate loser who is now the leader of our country. Of course it is beyond embarrassing that I the land of the free and the home of the brave has been reduced to a bunch of lying cowards whose ultimate objective is simply to hold onto power and without shame to accumulate untold amounts of personal wealth. I just wonder how long it will take for elected members of Congress to remember the oaths they took to uphold and defend etc etc or is this great experiment doomed to failure?

Steve Newman's avatar

Hopefully it will take till November Barbara & then, let the treason and corruption indictment's begin. That's what I call reality TV.

Maelstrom, D.C.'s avatar

Learning history and loving a morning story at the same time, to say nothing of giving us the gift of laughter. Thank you, thank you TBR.

Andy Borowitz's avatar

Thanks for your kind comment!