America needs no king
The death knell of American conservatism
The official social media pages of the White House posted this image this week. Not a meme group; not a MAGA influencer, not even the Republican Party. The official White House social media team. Paid for by tax dollars, and speaking on behalf of all of us. Think about that for a minute.
America does not need a king. America does not want a king. America’s political heritage is grounded in the rejection of monarchy, and the strong assertion that rule by the people is infinitely more desirable than the despotism of a king. A democracy may be slow-moving, inefficient, or chaotic; but all those things are preferable to bending the knee to a tyrant and submitting our liberties and rights to the needs of a single individual. Human dignity demands governance in the form of democracy, demands the rejection of all forms of tyranny and the placing of so much power in one person.
Donald Trump, as I’ve written time and time again, does not value or care about or even understand democracy. He has made that readily apparent in his actions and his words, over and over. Part of the frustration I’ve harbored over the last decade watching the Republican Party and conservative voters fall under the sway of this man is because I was raised in a conservative house, in a conservative place, under the influence of conservative ideas and people, and for all my frustrations and disagreements with that fact, I never doubted that conservatives believed in liberty, and the Constitution, and American democracy. We may have had different ideas about how to maximize liberty, or the best way to ensure the integrity of the democratic process. But that conservative upbringing was heavily influenced by the politics of 9/11 and the Bush presidency and the doctrine of democracy promotion abroad and “freedom fries” and the centering of the flag and veterans and the American Way of Life. I could doubt a lot of things, but I never doubted conservative commitment to the idea of America, and our Constitution and our democratic legacy and heritage, embodied as it was in the iconography of Washington and Jefferson and Patrick Henry and the Revolutionary War. Remember the Tea Party, and the tricorn hats and the “Don’t tread on me” flags and the Revolutionary imagery, all in service of a nearly rabid commitment to freedom from tyranny and the power of the democratic impulse of regular citizens? My frustration is borne of a feeling of betrayal, a feeling that I was lied to, that I was fed an idea that the people pushing didn’t actually take seriously, but saw as a mere sedative, something to keep me occupied until I Grew Up and Got Serious and saw How the World Really Worked. But, I took those ideas seriously, even as I rebelled against some of the ways they worked in the world. Donald Trump has crystallized the unseriousness of the conservatism I grew up with. It was all for show.
How far the conservative movement in America has fallen. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say we are bearing witness to the final death of American conservatism as it’s been practiced throughout the history of our country. It wasn’t a particularly good movement; it did a lot of harm. But it had principles, at least. Those were shed for good sometime between 2020 and 2024, and it’s becoming very apparent today: American conservatives are now just cultists, groupies of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, willing to throw away everything they once stood for – freedom, liberty, America, democracy – for the sake of less DEI and not having to see trans people and the wholesale deportation of people who might be immigrants of some sort, legal or not. It’s a sad farce of a political movement, the death throes of something. It’s not conservative, in any sense of the word, that’s for damn sure. Trump supporters have swapped out sober, cautious conservatism for a radical revolutionary nihilism on par with the Jacobins or Bolsheviks, in terms of rabidness, desire for destruction, and contempt for anyone deemed the Other.
And over it all stands the smiling face of King Donald, first of his name. This, apparently, is what gets the blood pumping for conservatives and Republicans today: the image of a king, a monarch, a singular human being making decisions for us, because making decisions for ourselves – and accepting that others might make different decisions – is too hard, is too scary, is too tiring. Who has time for democracy, anyways? Better to let someone else make those choices for us, and all the better that he tells us exactly what we want to hear. There’s no worry that one day that King will think differently than us; inconceivable!
America is nothing without the ideas that animate it. America is not a people, or a land, or an ethnicity. America is a set of ideas: the idea that all people are created equal, and thus have equal right to think for themselves. The idea that that equality demands recognition, demands dignity, and thus demands the right to make decisions for ourselves. The idea that democracy – government by, for, and of the people – is our right, and the only form of government acceptable to human dignity and rights. The idea that, even in that democratic setting, we all have rights beyond debate, and we all responsibilities to one another. The idea that we are all subject to the rule of law, and that none of us – not you, not I, not Donald Trump, not any billionaire- is more important than the idea of America.
America is ideas, is rights, is human dignity, is democracy. We don’t need a king. We shouldn’t want a king. A king demeans us all, infantilizes us, sets us on the path to domination and destruction. A king denies the dignity each of us carries around inside of us.
I know that some will come here, and say: it’s a joke! Relax, don’t worry so much, he’s just trolling! Stop being so uptight, stop worrying, America will be fine, or better than fine! To which I say: our country and our democracy is too important for jokes. The presidency is a too important and solemn trust for jokes and memes. The presidency represents us all, and only does so in a democracy, and demands a dignity and a seriousness about itself that this man has failed to meet over and over and over and over. You may think all of this is one big joke; you may find yourself using that laugh react emoji over and over; you may find all the fear and outrage around you hyperbolic and uncalled for. You may feel like nothing is really under threat, that some necessary changes are being made, and that our democracy will keep ticking on just fine, like a finely tuned watch. But, I’m telling you, it’s not. This is serious stuff; these things- images of our president as a king, promoted by his government; unaccountable billionaires and technocrats dismantling our government; the undermining of rights – are deadly serious, are the kinds of things that presage a slide into authoritarianism and the elimination of democracy and the rise of a soulless, gray tyranny. I think if you can’t see that, then you can’t really understand how for granted you take all of your life, and how different it would be if we did not have a liberal democracy anymore. I hope you don’t ever have to be shaken out of that complacency, but I fear we all are about to be.
I’ll leave you with this: there is a meme going around the last few days, that says this: “You’re allowed to say, at any point, I can’t support this. Even if you did. Even if you were unsure. You can at any point say, this has gone too far. And while the best time to say that was earlier, the second best time is right now.”
I’d like commend these words to any conservatives out there who want to get off this train, and are unsure how to do so, any conservatives still feeling the tugs of that old patriotism they once held so tightly. You can admit you were wrong, and start afresh today. You were sold on a set of promises, but the elevation of a King overturns those promises. You can say today, “Enough.” It doesn’t mean you’ve become a liberal or a progressive; it doesn’t mean you’ve betrayed Jesus. It just means you have a line you will not allow to be crossed, and you’ve remembered that. Please, for the sake of this democratic project we are all part of, wake up and recognize that, before it is too late.