Bolívar and Trump: A General and a Merchant in the Same Labyrinth
We all remember the problematic Latin American hero Simón Bolívar, whom the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez made the subject of one of his novels, “The General in His Labyrinth.” Bolívar’s very great dreams ended in a very short sentence, like a poisoned dagger: “We have plowed the sea.”
I do not know why this sentence, and the man who said it, have been haunting me lately whenever I see the American president speaking to reporters in the White House garden, or to his crowds on his shuttling campaign trips, or, and this is the most important part, as he attacks his opponents among politicians and former and current officials alike.
Trump has fallen into a labyrinth even crueler than the one the Latin general suffered in the nineteenth century. Bolívar dreamed of one Latin American continent, with one flag, one anthem and one central government, and found no way to achieve it except authoritarian rule. Although he sought to establish himself as a “liberator” of the Latin peoples, he was the one who suspended the constitution and declared himself a dictator with absolute powers “to restore order.” In pursuit of this, Bolívar chased down, in his own private labyrinth, everyone who opposed him, from liberals to intellectuals and elites. Bolívar lost his way in his political illusions before living his final days in his labyrinth, whose features García Márquez drew in his novel, on the Magdalena River toward the Caribbean coast.
President Trump is taking almost the same path, and he appears to be heading for the same labyrinth General Bolívar entered. Trump’s enemies inside America and abroad have multiplied, and he has kindled anger and hatred in every corner of the world. But the difference between the Venezuelan general and the American merchant lies in two things. The first is that Islam and Muslims were not among the ghosts Simón Bolívar chased, while they are among the “most dangerous ghosts” that the American merchant never stops mentioning or alluding to, day and night, starting with his handling of the immigration issue in the United States, and not ending with the political intimidation he leads against Muslim politicians of Arab origin, of whom Ilhan Omar is not the first and Abdul El-Sayed will not be the last.
The second difference between the general and the merchant is that Bolívar, although he worked throughout his life in a world of political conspiracies, was not surrounded by potential presidents the way the American merchant is, whether among those who oppose him or among those who “are loyal” to him. Trump, who sees himself as the most important American president ever to enter the Oval Office, has at least two potential presidents around him in his administration: JD Vance on one side and Marco Rubio on the other. At the same time, he faces politicians of a new generation he does not fully know, such as Mamdani, Abdul and many others. It is striking that none of these battles that Trump opens and does not close, and shouts about morning and evening on their stage, finds encouragement from the two most prominent men in his administration, who largely confine themselves to commenting on Middle East events. They leave their president to chase ghosts from eras the American citizen seems close to moving beyond, such as “Somalia,” “jihad” and “communism,” and other stones he throws at his opponents and at the opponents of his policies. So it was natural that his popularity, days before the midterm elections, would be at its lowest ever (31 percent), lower even than Biden’s (38 percent), who got the largest share of the White House merchant’s bullying.
Although I know Bolívar still has admirers in the world to this day, I am among those who see him as a dictator who pursued personal glory, destroying in that pursuit the hopes of a free and dignified life for peoples whose welfare and dignity he said again and again that he wanted. Even so, I apologize to those admirers for comparing their legendary hero to a merchant who takes pride in piracy and sees nothing in the world but himself.
Finally, I do not think I am exaggerating if I say that Trump is heading with both feet into the same tunnel the Venezuelan general entered nearly two centuries ago, in the last seven months of his life: alone, sick, narcissistic, accused of fighting his country’s democratic legacy. I do not even think he will get a statue like the one Americans erect for Simón Bolívar 1,300 meters from Trump’s room in the White House.
Published on Mahjar Post on October 23, 2026.
