Abstract The United States and Middle East autocracies do not make for the most natural of allies. One of the most common rhetorical tactics used to defend these alliances is to portray the ruler in question as a reformer who is steering his country into alignment with American sociopolitical norms. We argue that this tactic emerged out of realist assessments of foreign policy during the Cold War. However, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's attempt to deploy this topos during the Trump presidency met mixed results, calling into question the ability of leaders to balance between idealist and realist strains of U.S. foreign policy rhetoric. This essay explores the ramifications of this outcome, including how increased information access may portend the eventual demise of the reformer topos and signal the need for new topoi to legitimize American alliances with Middle Eastern autocracies.