• Opinion by Peter Costantini (seattle. usa)
• Thursday, April 23, 2026
• Inter Press Service

SEATTLE. USA, April 23 (IPS) – After Donald Trump’s second election as president in November 2024, he mentioned coyly that he wished to be a dictator … however only for a day. On his first day in workplace, his sharpie signed a powerful pile of presidential orders, lots of doubtful legality. The following day he continued to manipulate like a DIY duce. He has not stopped since.

He has introduced relations, incompetent political boot-lickers, and fellow kleptocrats into what’s trying much less like an administration and extra just like the Bling Dynasty, dominated by the Golden Emperor, Donald Khan. He continues to troll his opponents by hinting at a 3rd time period, which is prohibited by the U.S. Structure.

A far-flung grassroots opposition coalition has adopted the motto “No Kings”, which has resonated throughout a large political spectrum. In any case, British topics started a battle of independence 250 years in the past to liberate their colonies from the vagaries of the apparently bipolar King George III of England.

Thus far, No Kings has held three spirited days of nationwide motion, the final of which reportedly attracted some eight million folks to 1000’s of places throughout all 50 states. Many demonstrators carried home made indicators taking the piss out of Trump on a fantastic number of points. One favourite learn, “Sorry world, grandpa’s gone off his meds once more”; one other, “Struggle Fact Decay”. Huge inflatables of Trump as a child in diapers, penguins, frogs, and different fanciful creatures abounded. Additionally very seen in Seattle-area demonstrations have been Vietnam -era navy veterans and American flags.

The motion has been broadened by a variety of different constituencies difficult mass persecution and deportation of immigrants, defending laid-off public staff, making an attempt to reinstate devastating Medicaid (public medical health insurance) cuts, opposing navy intervention overseas and at residence, and getting up in Trump’s face on different vital points.

In response to the October 18th No Kings rallies, Trump posted what appears to be like like a synthetic intelligence-generated video on Fact Social, his private social media platform. It includes a cartoonish determine of him carrying a golden crown, flying a jet fighter that drops large quantities of excrement on demonstrators in metropolis streets under. It’s the form of dreck {that a} troubled third grader hooked on AI would possibly give you if left unsupervised. (Apologies to the various third-graders who’re far more mature than that).

Nonetheless, barring some deus ex machina, the world is caught with Donald Trump for not less than three extra years. In order he reinvents royalty as actuality present, whom might he undertake as a mannequin and inspiration?

Which king?

There have definitely been constitutional monarchs who served their nations honorably in ceremonial and advisory roles. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands earned widespread respect by supporting the resistance to Nazi occupation throughout World Warfare II. King Juan Carlos I of Spain performed a key function in guiding his nation again to democracy within the Seventies after many years below Generalísimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde’s fascist dictatorship.

However this doesn’t appear to be the form of reign Trumpísimo has in thoughts.

In a extra colonialist and mercantilist vein, there’s all the time el Rey Fernando II of fifteenth and sixteenth Century Spain. With la Reina Isabel, he accomplished the Reconquista, expelling Jews and Muslims from Al-Andalus (an early foreshadowing of Trump’s Muslim Bans). His reign unleashed the mind-bending tortures of Torquemada and the Holy Inquisition (a lot extra imaginative than the ham-handed bludgeoning at Trump’s Salvadoran rent-a-gulag). Fernando’s conquistadores plundered the gold (a lot sexier than tariffs), demolished the temples, and subjugated the peoples of the traditional civilizations of the Americas with sword and cross. Trump is off to a sluggish begin along with his incoherent threats and clumsy aggressions towards Iran, Venezuela, Greenland, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Canada, and Palestine.

For sheer absolutist extra, don’t overlook Louis XIV of France. His little nation place at Versailles throws shade throughout Mar-a-Lago. Whereas Lou might rock a moniker like “le Roi Soleil” (the Solar King), Trump should accept “the Tanning Mattress King” or maybe “the Drill Child Drill King”. And the way about “L’état, c’est moi” (The state is me)? Sorry, however does the Donald have something punchier than “I’d such as you to do me a favor, although”? Or “I might stand in the course of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” (Sadly, his supine Supreme Court docket majority has his again on this one.) Then there’s “I’ve the suitable to do something I need to do. I’m the President.” Seems like a third-grade class president throwing a tantrum. (Once more, apologies to the various third graders who would by no means behave this boorishly.)

In comparison with these historic friends, Trump comes out extra mafioso than monarch.

However worry not. British historian Marc Morris has highlighted a promising religious forefather for the Trump monarchy.

King John, also called John Lackland, dominated England from 1199 till his loss of life in 1216. He got here to be nicknamed Unhealthy King John for his treachery, lechery, lying and cruelty. Morris quotes a recent chronicler, Nameless of Béthune: “He was a really dangerous man, extra merciless than all others. He lusted after stunning girls and due to this he shamed the excessive males of the land, for which purpose he was enormously hated. Every time he might he instructed lies moderately than the reality … He was brim-full of evil qualities.” Remind you of anybody?

Troubadour Bertran de Born piled on: “No man could ever belief him, for his coronary heart is smooth and cowardly.”

“He was a complete jerk,” wrote Morris. “He didn’t simply kill, he was sadistic. He starved folks to loss of life. And never simply enemy knights, however as soon as a rival’s spouse and son.” In one other incident, John locked 22 noble prisoners of battle in a citadel and left them to die of hunger.

In 1215, the English barons (essentially the most highly effective nobles) rebelled towards King John and compelled him to signal the Magna Carta. This historic accord established a prototype for the rule of regulation within the English-speaking world. It developed to use to kings and paupers, though on the time it was primarily an settlement between the monarchy and the the Aristocracy.

“For the primary time Magna Carta established publicly the precept that the king was topic to the regulation,” wrote historian Nick Higham. “It additionally led not directly to the event of a brand new form of state, during which the cash to manipulate the nation got here from taxation agreed by parliament.” (Russell Vought take notice.)

Article 39 articulated the authorized idea of habeas corpus (“you could have the physique” in Latin), which established freedom from arbitrary detention by the federal government with out simply trigger. This grew to become a keystone of due course of below the regulation. The Magna Carta additionally established that the king might levy taxes solely with the approval of a council of nobles. This developed into the primary parliament fifty years later.

The Magna Carta was supposed to resolve conflicts between the Crown and the barons. However inside just a few weeks, John disowned it and did not honor his commitments. The doc specified that the treatment for non-compliance was that the nobles might go to battle once more towards the king, which they did. France then invaded England in assist of the rebels, and the barons invited the French Prince Louis to imagine the throne of England.

When John died of dysentery in 1216, he was extensively reviled. Chronicler Matthew Paris wrote an epitaph for the king: “Foul as it’s, Hell itself is made fouler by the presence of John.” However after his loss of life, Louis was chased out of England and the Magna Carta was finally revived once more.

As a poster prince for unbridled monarchical energy, then, John ended up leaving a combined legacy from a MAGA standpoint. On the draw back, Trump would possibly take into account him “a loser” as a result of he signed away the limitless divine proper of kings. However on the upside, he quickly reneged on the Magna Carta and duked it out with the nobles and France till the top.

All instructed, King John the Unhealthy checked a lot of the packing containers for an early political progenitor of King Don the Con.

The Con?

Did you catch the intelligent double entendre? The President is a felon, convicted on 34 counts of “fraudulently falsifying enterprise information” by concealing a $130,000 cost of hush cash to grownup movie star Stormy Daniels to affect the 2016 elections. He’s additionally a world-class con artist, snagging a $400 million Boeing 747 as an emolument from Qatar. It’ll initially function Air Pressure One, however the candy half is that after he leaves workplace, the “flying palace” can be housed within the foyer of his presidential library and hotel in Miami.

And let’s not overlook that Don was additionally discovered answerable for sexual assault and defamation in a civil lawsuit. A jury awarded plaintiff E. Jean Carroll a settlement of $83.3 million {dollars}, of which $65 million was for punitive damages. An appeals court docket upheld the judgement, discovering that: “The report on this case helps the district court docket’s dedication that ‘the diploma of reprehensibility’ of Mr. Trump’s conduct was remarkably excessive, maybe unprecedented”.

On the coverage entrance, the title of the second Trump administration’s grasp plan, Project 2025, apparently contained a typo: it ought to have been referred to as Challenge 1214. In follow, it has develop into a blueprint for rolling again human rights, democracy and good authorities to pre-Magna Carta irrelevance, unleashing the king’s unchecked energy, and disemboweling important authorities features.

Clearly, in lots of domains of regal malfeasance, King Don has already surpassed King John. He has made so many efforts to exhibit that the rule of regulation doesn’t apply to him that we will solely take into account just a few of essentially the most egregious right here.

His pièce de résistance stays his efforts to declare the 2020 presidential election invalid and to overturn the result by a violent coup d’état on January 6, 2021. The small print have been replayed endlessly: greater than 60 lawsuits in 9 states towards the election, all thrown out of court docket as baseless; Trump’s speech spurring on the armed, violent mob; the rioters on the Capitol, outfitted with gallows and noose, chanting “Cling Mike Pence” (the Vice President accountable for certifying the rely of the electoral outcomes); their violent incursion into the Capitol in an effort to cease the electoral course of; a rioter defecating on Speaker of the Home Nancy Pelosi’s desk; the killing and maiming of police making an attempt to guard lawmakers. All this passed off in entrance of all the nation in newscasts and congressional hearings for lengthy afterwards.

Maybe essentially the most gorgeous end result, nevertheless, is that Trump, the MAGA motion, and a lot of the Republican Celebration have by no means acknowledged that in 2020 the citizens instructed the President, “You’re fired.” As an alternative, he tethered his return to workplace in 2024 to a dark-matter constellation of lies concerning the elections. He referred to as J6 “a day of affection”, and pardoned some 1,500 convicted members of essentially the most harmful rabble of terrorists to assault this nation since 9/11. He continues to power gutless Republicans to drink the identical Kool Support for a few years after his story has been totally discredited.

Don the Con additionally has doubled down on different debunked lies concerning the 2020 election, akin to widespread electoral corruption and voting by non-citizens. Utilizing these falsehoods, he’s pushing to take management of elections and voter rolls away from the states, to whom the Structure grants these powers, and provides them to himself. He’s additionally making an attempt to make voting tougher for lower-income and aged folks with ploys like requiring proof of citizenship to vote – akin to a delivery certificates or passport – which has by no means earlier than been a requisite.

Trump’s energy to negate the rule of regulation by spawning different realities is one which King John might need envied.

Fashionable communications applied sciences give Trump the means to corrode our shared understandings that have been inconceivable 800 years in the past. The President assaults social and information media like a “leaf blower”, as satirist Stephen Colbert put it, deafeningly flooding the zone with easy, mendacious messages. Don will most likely not perish from dysentery as John did, however he has contaminated world political areas with informational dysentery. His propaganda machine serves as a disinformation sump pump that sucks out poison from MAGA cesspools and inundates bodily and digital public squares.

Throughout Trump’s first time period, the Washington Post counted 30,573 false or deceptive claims, round 20 per day. In his second time period, the tempo appears to have picked up.

Veteran White Home correspondent Peter Baker wrote a New York Occasions piece headlined “Trump’s Wild Claims, Conspiracies and Falsehoods Redefine Presidential Bounds”. He noticed, “Fact just isn’t all the time an plentiful useful resource within the White Home below any president, however by no means has the Oval Workplace been occupied by somebody so indifferent from verifiable information.”

Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s former White Home communications director, instructed Baker that Trump has accomplished “50 years of distorting issues and telling lies and … 50 years of getting away with it, so why wouldn’t he make the lies greater and extra impactful on this final stretch?”

In a single case, Trump accused america Company for Worldwide Growth of sending $50 million value of condoms to the Palestinian group Hamas. After journalists debunked the unique story, Trump continued to repeat it, however elevated the alleged whole to $100 million.

“What have been dubbed ‘different information’ in his first time period,” wrote Baker, “have shortly develop into an entire alternative reality in his second.”

To be continued in Half 2 of three

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