Some 23 years ago, at the start of the Iraq War, I was senior cultural writer for Gannett Inc., writing a story about the nature of leadership and interviewing, among others, New York City developer Donald J. Trump, who had agreed to answer some questions by email. At the time, Trump owned the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which featured the $10,000-a-night Alexander the Great suite.

Alexandrian that I am, I was intrigued and began by asking him why Alexander? “Because he was the best, and it’s the best,” Trump wrote back.

I was reminded of that the evening of Friday, May 1, as I watched Ashley Parker, a staff writer with The Atlantic, discuss “The Yolo Presidency,” an article she co-authored, on PBS’ “Washington Week with The Atlantic,’’ about how President Trump aspires to be a great man affecting history in the spirit of Alexander, Julius Caesar and Napoleon and, especially in19th-century German philosopher Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel’s interpretation of the “Great Man Theory.”