My Dartmouth classmate, the distinguished actor Steve Macht, recently shared this thoughtful analysis with his classmates. After reading it, I asked Steve if he would allow me to share it more widely, and he gladly agreed. If you post your reactions on my Substack page or at Themerrowreport.com, Steve will see them.

Trump, King George, and the Failure of Recognition

The comparison between Donald Trump and King George III becomes more illuminating when viewed not politically, but dramatically—through the lens of Aristotle.

In true tragedy, as Aristotle teaches, a man errs (hamartia), comes to recognize that error (anagnorisis), and undergoes reversal (peripeteia). The movement is inward. Responsibility is discovered, not deflected. From that recognition comes pity—because we see ourselves in the man—and fear, because we recognize how easily we might follow the same path.

But when recognition does not occur—when error is never owned, never examined, never internalized—tragedy collapses into melodrama.

And melodrama requires a villain.

King George III, as he lives in the American imagination (fairly or not), became such a figure. In the Declaration of Independence, he is not portrayed as a man capable of self-reflection, but as a fixed force—unyielding, deaf to petition, certain of his own rightness. Whether or not the historical George possessed that rigidity in full, dramatically he functions as the antagonist: a figure against whom others must act, because he will not act upon himself.

This is precisely where critics place Donald Trump.

Trump’s public pattern—over years—is not merely one of error. All leaders err. It is the absence of acknowledged error that defines the pattern. Mistakes are reframed as victories. Contradictions are dismissed or ignored. Blame is displaced outward—onto opponents, institutions, and circumstance. There is motion, but no inward turn.

In Aristotelian terms, there is no anagnorisis.

Without recognition, there can be no true reversal—only escalation. Each challenge becomes an external attack to be defeated, rather than an internal signal to be understood. The dramatic structure shifts: instead of a shared human struggle toward understanding, we are given opposing forces locked in conflict.

That is melodrama.

And in melodrama, the villain is not necessarily evil in his own mind. Quite the opposite: he often believes himself justified, even heroic. But dramatically, he is defined by one essential trait—he does not change. He cannot recognize himself as the source of the conflict. Therefore, the conflict must always be someone else’s doing.

This is why the analogy to “Mad King George” persists—not as a clinical judgment, but as a dramatic one. It names a fear: what happens when power is joined not simply to error, but to the inability to recognize error?

My Aristotelian framework makes the distinction exact:

· In tragedy:

I did this. I see it. I must change.

· In melodrama:

They did this. I must defeat them.

Trump, in this reading, is not tragic. He does not move toward recognition. Therefore he cannot generate pity—only opposition. The emotional field splits: those aligned with him feel embattled and justified; those opposed feel threatened and resistant. Fear and anger replace fear and pity.

That is the signature of melodrama.

And it is why the comparison to King George, though historically imperfect, carries dramatic truth. It is not about monarchy versus democracy. It is about a deeper question:

Can a leader recognize himself?

If not, then the drama cannot resolve through understanding. It can only be resolved through struggle.

Steve Macht