By Howard Green

The last days of Trump have come at last, heralding an inevitably vast amount of journalistic analysis. Trump has been criticised continually through his presidency from many angles by commentators across the media spectrum. Now, as we seek to understand the terrifying exceptionalism of the past four years, classical political thought has once again reared its head. In order to criticise Trump, many invoke writers who have become associated with a collective anxiety – Orwell, Kafka, and, most frustratingly, Machiavelli. Niccolò Machiavelli and his writings have been associated with despotism and evil ever since his works were placed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Catholic church. But to describe Trump as Machiavellian is a misunderstanding of the controversial but frustratingly correct political theorist who warned against tyrants like him.