Democracies are in decline, the autocrats insist. “Strongmen” have the upper hand. Or do they? “Strongmen” such as Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin look awfully pathetic these days.
Strongmen, as historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains, “are a subset of authoritarian who require total loyalty, bend democracy around [their] own needs, and use different forms of machismo to interact with their people and with other rulers.” To boost their image of omnipotence, Putin rides a horse shirtless; Trump depicts himself as Jesus. But what happens when such stunts no longer conceal that the strongmen are not all that strong?
These days, Putin does not project the aura of a strongman, as an anonymous Russian writer explains:
As recently as last spring, everything was “we” and “ours”. Mr Putin’s war on Ukraine may be reckless and failing, but it was shared. “We” were inside it, and it would be better for all of “us” if it ended sooner. Now they describe what is happening as “his” story, not “ours”. Not our project, not our agenda, not our war.
Ouch. When all the Great Leader can offer is “repression, intrusion, and censorship,” the populace drifts away. Putin’s May 9 parade (like Trump’s skimpy birthday party parade in 2025) was downright pitiful. With “no victories to celebrate” and drone strikes forcing Putin to ask for a ceasefire, the parade was “dramatically downgraded,” and the usual display of tanks eliminated, the Wall Street Journal reported.
No one can miss the parallels to Donald Trump. With an approval rating in the 30’s, overwhelming opposition to his war, his party facing a midterm defeat, and no domestic accomplishments, his Truth Social rants have become even more unhinged. He is a prisoner of his own anger, panic, and desperation. He has started throwing aides overboard as he frantically tries to dispel the stench of failure.
Moreover, both Trump and Putin now appear physically and mentally decrepit. “Putin is perceived today as an old grandpa, a grandpa unaware about the real state of affairs in people’s lives,” Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told the Wall Street Journal. “He’s no longer seen as the protector. He’s no longer seen as Superman.” Well, at least Putin does not babble incoherently, fall asleep in public, or try to cover up his grossly discolored hands. Trump’s decline is so obvious that nearly 60 percent of US adults polled recognize that he is not mentally or physically fit to hold office.
Interminable wars have accelerated both autocrats’ decline. Putin faces a slew of horrible news: a bollixed-up ground offensive, 35,000 casualties in a single month, and widespread recognition that “the sacrifices of those soldiers were entirely in vain [and] no major objectives were achieved.” (Putin’s boasts comparing himself to heroes of the “Great Patriotic War” began to ring hollow as the Ukraine war surpassed WWII’s duration with no victory in sight.) As the Wall Street Journal reported, Russians are now ready to acknowledge the war was “a bad idea.” Sound familiar?
Trump likewise struggles to paint himself as victorious in Iran. Just as Ukraine proved to be Putin’s kryptonite, Trump’s Iran debacle, rather than enhance his power, has revealed his feebleness, utter confusion, and desperation. Despite Trump’s laughable exaggerations of success, we know that Iran’s strikes were more effective against our facilities than Trump let on; U.S. destruction of Iranian weaponry was far more limited than advertised. Iran barely deigns to reply to his proposals.
Trump sure does not seem like a strongman. Widespread news reports reiterate that Trump failed at regime change, left intact 75 percent of Iran’s missile capacity, lost the Strait of Hormuz as an international waterway, flushed down the drain $25B (for starters) in immediate defense costs, and burdened Americans with sky-high gas prices. Voters refuse to ignore domestic hardship and overwhelmingly disapprove of the war.
Simply put, Trump is now a loser, responsible for a defeat of historic proportions. Robert Kagan writes:
It’s hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored….Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started.
It seems both Putin and Trump are experiencing what is called “autocratic backfire.” Ben Ghiat explains:
Autocratic backfire occurs when narcissistic leaders have insulated themselves from criticism by surrounding themselves with sycophants and loyalists. No one will tell them the truth, and religious collaborators tell them they are in office by divine will, and so they also end up believing their own propaganda about their invincibility, genius instincts, and infallibility. Then the stage is set for them to make momentous decisions on the basis of erroneous beliefs or personal ideological obsessions.
That seems an apt description of Trump’s present condition. As Ben-Ghiat notes, “Autocratic backfire often results in military or economic disasters, and authoritarian history is full of policies and projects championed by the ruler out of hubris and megalomania and implemented to disastrous effect.” He is saddled with an unwinnable war, one he was warned not to start. He picks stupid fights (with the Pope and Greenland, no less), resorts to ludicrous tactics to feel powerful (e.g., indicting James Comey for commenting on seashells), and fixates on invented accomplishments. (Inflation down! Settled 8 or more wars! Not even.)
So we should stop using “strongman” to describe either Trump or Putin. Their respective reign of terror, directed against their people, has only intensified. Though they remain in power, their situation is precarious. (Hungary’s former prime minister Viktor Orbán also went from strongman to disgraced loser in a single election.) The aura of failure hangs over them. Former followers disparage them. Their propaganda cannot withstand vivid evidence of failure. They seem old and decrepit.
Rather than “strongman,” terms such as “backfiring autocrat” or “unaware old grandpa” better describe Putin and Trump. Desperation makes them unpredictable and dangerous, but they can no longer bend reality to match their grandiose self-image, defy public opinion, or command international respect.
No wonder Trump keeps trying to cheer himself up with plans for vulgar monuments to himself. Goodness knows, if he doesn’t build them, no one else will.
A long time since America suffered total defeat? What do you call Vietnam or Afghanistan. Both total defeats. In Korea, the Chinese kicked our rears back near the original border between North and South. Iraq was a cluster--k and while we managed to salvage something from it, you can't call it a victory. Then the Cold War... so much spent and look at Russia now? That was also a failure.
Unaware old grandpas??? That's a defamation of Grandpas everywhere. Call them what they are: decrepit, old monsters.