This authoritarian believes he has a divine right to rule

You know the quote.

- JON SOPEL

The one attributed to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The one where he is said to have said, “there are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen”. Well, on that basis, it feels like one year of Donald Trump has been a millennium.

Sitting down to write a review of this momentous and consequential year, I got my notepad out and started to scribble down all that I could remember: Tariffs. Liberation Day. Going to war with the Fed. Epstein. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Zelensky eviscerated in the White House. Putin feted in Alaska. Flip-flopping on Ukraine. Second UK state visit. Strikes on Iran. Release of Israeli hostages. No Nobel prize. But the inaugural Fifa peace prize! Greenland. Bond market wobbles. Labour statistics head fired cos Trump didn't like the statistics. Persecution of political opponents.

Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton indicted. Crackdown on anti-Trump protesters. Pardoning of January 6 rioters. White House website says J6 was peaceful. Death of woke. Dwarves cause Washington plane crash. Demolition of East Wing. New ballroom. Trump crypto. Gold bars from the Swiss. Jumbo from Qatar. Trump family enriching itself. Smithsonian removes all reference to past Trump impeachments. Shakedown of biggest US law firms. Dozing off in cabinet. Health questions. Charlie Kirk murder. TV host Jimmy Kimmel fired and then reinstated. Media companies surrender. Musk fireworks. Doge. USAID. Pentagon becomes Department of War. Generals told to do press-ups and lose weight. Venezuela boat strikes. Maduro abducted. Minnesota. ICE immunity.

Is this exhaustive? No. But - jeezzz - it's exhausting.

So, how to make sense of it all? In academic circles in the US, there is an active debate going on about whether the word “fascist” should now be applied to Donald Trump, but that seems to have limited value. Or is he a neo-royalist? I'm not sure any “ism” fits into a characterisation of this president.