Do We Have a King?

On Saturday people across the country, and even in other countries, gathered for the "No Kings" protests. I attended the one here in Lincoln Nebraska for a few hours. Afterwards I spend some time perusing social media to see what "the other side" had to say about them Of course, the fact that the Trumpers, and Trump himself, would downplay, and even misrepresent them, came as no surprise. At the nadir of disgustingness, also no surprise, was the Truth Social post by Trump himself. The post featured a video of The Dotard at the controls of a military jet, which had the words "King Trump" emblazoned on the side, bombing the protesters with shit. Most of the other comments sunk merely to the level of childish taunts. 

The commenters who attempted to explain why the protests were a waste of time tended to focus on the fact that, literally, Trump is not a king. He is not a member of a royal family, nor did he inherit his position. He was elected to it. Variations on the theme included references to July 4th being the real "No King" day, or that we haven't actually had a king since 1776. All of that is true, so why have we, the Trump opposition, latched on to the "No King" label? One of the reasons comes from Trump himself. After inserting himself into the congestion pricing debate in New York, he declared that he was canceling it, and added "The King has spoken". He has also posted pictures of himself wearing a royal crown. Most of us, hopefully all of us, realize that Trump is not a literal king. We are using the term as shorthand for the kind of absolute ruler archetype that Trump is aspiring to become. Even those who rebelled against Great Britain in 1776, while using the language of opposition to a king, were in reality opposing the British parliament, since the actual king was at that time in their history not an absolute monarch, and parliament made the rules. It's shorthand, it's an image, intended to convey our protestation against rule by one man. The Trumpers' attempt at cleverness portrays their ignorance of symbolism and nuance. 

There are a number of other words that have been used to describe the Trump presidency: fascist, dictator, Nazi, authoritarian. I have seen some Trump opponents object to some of these because they aren't completely accurate in painting a picture of the regime. Some Jewish friends have pointed out that Trumpism hasn't yet sunk to the level of depravity of the Nazis in World War II; Fascism has a specific meaning that includes the economic in addition to the political side of things. There are even technical differences between an authoritarian and a dictator. This article lists the differences between the two. In short, while both are essentially one-man rule, an authoritarian relies somewhat on a constitutional structure and a dictator controls all aspects of the state and society. The article presents the differences in more detail; Trump's regime resembled the authoritarian model more closely (although I believe the author has defined "dictator" in a way that only the very extreme cases qualify). I have chosen to characterize Trump as a dictator, rather than an authoritarian, mainly because the word has more impact—doesn't sound as academic—and is more recognizable. I have had people argue with me that the fact that Trump was elected disqualifies him from the category of dictator, although it is pretty easy to find dictators who were initially elected but eventually accreted all power to themselves, like Putin in Russia. 

In my opinion the defining characteristic of dictatorship in Trump's second term is the fact that he is unilaterally making decisions that are either should be decided jointly with Congress, or are Congress's sole purview. This is entirely separate from the issue of whether what he is doing is beneficial or is harmful for the country, but goes to the question of whether he has the authority to do what he does on his own. This blog post of mine outlines in detail why I think we are now under a dictatorship. But whether you call him a dictator, an authoritarian, a fascist, a Nazi, or a king, the bottom line is that he is acting illegally and extra-constitutionally. He is making unilateral decisions and claiming that, as president, he "can do whatever he wants". This is not how a representative democracy works, not how a constitutional republic works. 

The defenses of Trump have fallen into two main camps. One type of Trumper is fully on board with his policies and is willing to accept anything that puts those policies in effect. A Trumper friend the other day rationalized the blowing up of boats alleged to be smuggling drugs to the United States by stating how reprehensible drug dealing was. I don't disagree with his assessment of drug dealers, but there are several illegal things happening with these attacks. We are using the military in what is essentially a law enforcement capacity. Trump has declared the drug cartels, not just a criminal conspiracy, but a terrorist group supported by the Venezuelan government. We have not be shown any evidence that these boats are running drugs, or in any way connected with drug cartels—we are summarily executing people from a country with whom we are not at war and have not been accused of, let alone convicted of, a crime. We also already have a method to stop drugs coming in by boat: the Coast Guard stops and searches them, and if carrying drugs, subjects them to the legal system. Yet my friend believes the end justifies the means. The other camp believes that the actions that Trump has taken are legal, and believe his assertion that he can do whatever he wants. These people truly believe that the president has the authority to take whatever action he deems fit. They don't understand, and don't want to understand the constitutional nuances. 

So yes, if we are speaking figuratively, we have a monarch wannabe. We have a president who craves the unrestricted power that the absolute monarchs, exercising the divine right of kings, had once upon a time. That's why we march.