As liberal critics of the Trump presidency have scrambled for traction since January, one historical analogy seems ubiquitous: “If you want a model for what’s happening to America,” economist Paul Krugman wrote in April, “think of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.” From the New York Times to the Guardian to a slew of Substacks, commentators have presented Donald Trump as the U.S. incarnation of the Great Helmsman.

Like Mao Zedong, these pundits say, Trump is mobilizing an insurrectionary base to destroy bureaucratic and cultural elites, has created a cult of personality in which the leader’s will overrides all else, and is brutally intolerant of his ideological enemies.

What are we a bunch of Asians?!