In Trump’s America, It Takes a King to Praise Democracy

The Felon is widely hated in the United Kingdom. So hated in fact that many wanted Charles III to cancel his state vising to America. Charles ignored the calls to cancel and not only seemingly charmed the Felon - a man easily impressed by wealth and titles - but also gave a remarkable speech to the joint houses of Congress where he spoke of the benefits of liberal democracy, the rule of law, Magna Carta (signed by one of my distant ancestors), fighting climate change, and the importance of the NATO alliance, Basically, Charles praised everything the Felon is working against as if he were an agent of Vladimir Putin and those who hold democracy in contempt.  In the process, Charles gently trolled the Felon who seemed to be oblivious to the fact that he was being trolled in a sophisticated way. The contrast between Charles and the Felon could not be more stark: one the symbol of old wealth, tradition and public self-control versus the Nouveau riche Felon who prefers ostentatious and flashy displays rather than subtle, traditional luxury while acting in a boorish manner.  A piece in the New Yorker looks at Charles giving a speech that should be given by any worthy occupant of the White House, something that obviously is beyond the current crude and vulgar occupant.  Here are article highlights: 

Two hundred and fifty years into the American experiment, it turns out that it takes a King to tell us how to run our Republic.

On Tuesday, His Majesty King Charles III, the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of George III, the British monarch who lost the Revolutionary War to a bunch of impertinent colonists enamored of Enlightenment ideas about the natural rights of man, spoke to the U.S. Congress. With dry wit and a sense of irony that was surely lost on the host he so subtly trolled, Charles extolled the virtues of American-style liberal democracy now under threat by America’s own leader. What does it say about our current politics that polite British-accented clichés about the benefits of the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and the strengths that flow from “vibrant, diverse, and free societies” could end up sounding downright subversive?

The King’s biggest applause line was a tribute to Magna Carta, the thirteenth-century compact between an English monarch and his restive nobles, which, Charles noted, has become a pillar of American constitutional jurisprudence, with the Supreme Court citing it at least a hundred and sixty times in its history, not least to establish “the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.” It was a telling sign of our dysfunctional times that members of Congress from both parties, having been increasingly iced out of decision-making by a President claiming unprecedented executive power for himself, immediately rose for a standing ovation.

Did it matter that Donald Trump did not get the joke?

Even as Charles was speaking, Trump’s White House posted on social media an image of the two men with the caption “TWO KINGS. 👑” Later that evening, during a toast at a state dinner for his royal visitor, Trump praised his “fantastic” speech and lauded Charles for accomplishing what he could not—getting Democrats to stand and applaud him. He seemed utterly oblivious to why they had done so, and remained apparently unaware for the rest of the King’s trip. “He’s a great King,” Trump said on Thursday, at the conclusion of the state visit. “The greatest King, in my book.”

Trump spent the rest of the week proving Charles’s point about unchecked powers, with his Justice Department indicting the former F.B.I. director James Comey, for a social-media post of seashells—which prosecutors improbably claim constituted a threat on the President’s life—and his Federal Communications Commission ordering a review of the broadcast licenses for ABC stations just days after the comedian Jimmy Kimmel had used the network’s airwaves to make a joke that the First Lady did not like.

So here we are, two and a half centuries later, with a King who venerates the American Bill of Rights and a President who, increasingly, rejects it. It hardly seemed a coincidence that, on the same day as the King’s speech, reports emerged about the Trump State Department’s plans to honor America’s two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary with a commemorative passport whose distinguishing feature will be a large likeness of the President. Watching Trump and Charles together this week, I could not help but think of the bizarre contrast between the public modesty of the crowned monarch and the pomposity of the self-styled populist President; of these two, it’s not George III’s heir who is the one planning to erect golden statues of himself in his palaces.

The contrast between Charles and Trump was nowhere clearer than when it came to the King’s vision for America’s continued leadership in the world. In his speech, Charles, like every American President of my lifetime except Trump, hailed NATO as the foundation of our common defense. Then he exhorted Congress to defend “Ukraine and her most courageous people” with the “same unyielding resolve” that the United States has shown in fighting two world wars and other international threats to democracy over the past century. The times, he insisted, demand that America “ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward-looking.”

These comments, as striking as they were in confirming a major international pivot by the United States, got little attention. They did, however, seem to prompt Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to shift his own tactics. . . . . “If the Vice-President is proud that he’s not helping us, it means he’s helping Russians, and I’m not sure that it’s strengthening the United States.”

On Wednesday, Trump spoke on the phone with Putin about the wars in the Middle East and Europe. Although Russia has, according to intelligence officials, been aiding the Iranians with targeting information in their war with the U.S., Trump claimed that Putin would “like to be of help” in resolving the conflict. As for Ukraine, he told reporters that Putin “was ready to make a deal a while ago,” all but publicly blaming Zelensky, once again, for the continuation of the Russian invasion.

Trump, in other words, was privately trash-talking Zelensky in what he himself called another “very good” conversation with his “friend” Putin. He may not have got Zelensky to agree to peace on Russia’s terms, but, in little more than a year, Trump has practically run down a checklist of other Putin priorities: undermining America’s European allies, effectively ending billions of dollars in funding for Ukraine, attempting to shut down Radio Free Europe and other U.S. government agencies that promote democracy in the former Soviet Union, even lying publicly on Putin’s behalf to claim that Ukraine, not Russia, started the war,

Just this week, while Charles praised the NATO alliance to the U.S. Congress as the West’s indispensable bulwark, Trump was threatening to pull troops out of U.S. bases in Germany, apparently because he’s angry about criticism of his war in Iran by the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz.

There is, sadly, no other conclusion to draw from all this than the obvious one: Trump, however personally dazzled he is by the wealth and splendor of the British monarchy, much prefers the policies and the power of the modern-day tsar he spoke with on Wednesday to those of the King he hosted with such pomp the day before.