Trump is Playing at Being a King, and It Is Dangerous
The Founders Understood that We Needed to Stop Kingly Power AND Kingly Trappings
By John A. Ragosta*
Americans will soon celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. At its heart, the Declaration was a firm pronouncement that America would not be governed by a king.
America denounced kingly powers and prerogatives, the monarch’s “injuries and usurpations” that encouraged “an absolute Tyranny over these States.” The Founders insisted that kings have no right to rule; governments derive their just powers only from “the consent of the governed.” As John Adams put it, our nation is a “government of laws, and not of men.”
The Federalist Papers concluded that, unlike a king, a president would “be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law” after his term. And, until Supreme Court conservatives shockingly granted Trump king-like immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while in office, the matter was considered settled.
But beyond the question of royal power, there is another aspect of kingly government that the Founders firmly rejected and that, sadly, President Trump warmly embraces: The Founders not only rejected the legal power and prerogatives of a king, they were also firmly opposed to a president acting with kingly trappings.
Such royal frills tend to divorce government from the governed, discourage participation of regular citizens in government, and encourage leaders to think that they can exercise distinctly un-American (and dangerous) legal authority. The trimmings of monarchy also tend to elevate the president over other elected officials like members of Congress, threatening the separation of powers.
No one was more opposed to a president putting on the airs of monarchy than Thomas Jefferson. While Jefferson might well have boasted of his positions, his landslide electoral victory, and his great successes, he understood that the president was a citizen who served the nation, and he was committed to making that clear through his actions.
For example, after his election, while staying in a boarding house in the still-young Washington, it was said that Jefferson refused to take the seat at the head of the table, maintaining his old spot.
Jefferson’s disdain for kingly frills continued as president. When the new British ambassador, Anthony Merry, came to the president’s house to present his credentials to Jefferson, the ambassador came in full regalia. We can imagine the formal dress coat trimmed in velvet, gold braid, silk stockings, dress sword, a plumed hat tucked firmly under one arm, and black leather shoes polished to a mirror-like finish. But when Jefferson entered to greet Merry, the president was wearing slippers.
Merry was aghast and prepared to start an international incident. He believed Jefferson’s dress was “intended as an insult” to both himself and, by implication, King George. Merry wrote to London accusing Jefferson of a “state of negligence actually studied” that was “indicative of utter slovenliness.” Years later, Merry was still telling the story of his “abuse” at the hands of Jefferson.
Merry, coming from a nation of kings and queens at a time when Europe was besot with royal privileges and decadence, misunderstood. Jefferson did not intend to insult, but, as he often did, he was issuing a pointed reminder that America did not have a king or a kingly court and that the president was just a citizen chosen to serve the people for a period of time. Jefferson made the same point at state dinners where he rejected seating by rank, preferring pell-mell seating.
In fact, after the so-called “Merry Affair,” Jefferson drew up rules of etiquette for the government intended to “maintain the principle of equality.”
Sadly, Trump has missed the lesson.
He is openly seeking what has been described as a “flying palace” in what can only be said to be an open bribe from the government of Qatar. And setting aside the fact that a new Air Force One is on order, and that the Qatari “gift” could cost hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded upgrades, and the “significant espionage and surveillance problems” (described by Senator Ted Cruz), he is determined to do so regardless of Article 1:9 of the Constitution that specifies that “no Person holding any office” may accept any “any present…of any kind whatever” from a foreign government without the approval of Congress.
Rather than taking the constitutional warning to heart, Trump seems to promote exactly the “pay-to-play” type of system that it was intended to prevent. He has extorted hundreds of millions from interested parties, foreign and domestic, to buy a seat at his crypto-currency dinner, including a participant involved with the Chinese Communist Party.
Trump’s planned birthday parade is of the same ilk. He is determined to stage a parade of tanks, missiles, planes, and troops through Washington DC on his birthday, with taxpayers picking-up the tab of up to $45 million and millions more in damage to the District. It would be nice if we could dismiss this as a child playing with toy soldiers, but it looks far too much like the military parades staged by kings and dictators in a vain attempt to show their strength and humble their people.
Trump has ogled the palaces of mega-rich and dictatorial royalty with obvious envy, openly expressing his jealousy. He has tried to convert the White House to a kingly retreat, bragging to Canadian Prime Minister Carney that he has renovated the Oval Office “with great love and 24-karat gold – that always helps.”
He is draping federal buildings with his over-sized scowling image, like a mad king.
The list could go on and on.
Jefferson was right: The president is merely a citizen called to serve. Trying to flaunt royal trappings does a disservice to American citizens and tends to discourage the system of checks and balances intended to control the president. As John Adams explained, such abuse of power bespeaks a tyrant, someone “bound by no law or limitation, but his own will.”
If Trump wants to understand what makes a U.S. president great, he should take a lesson from Thomas Jefferson.
If he won’t, it is time for Congress to put a stop to this foolishness.
* Dr. Ragosta, formerly the acting director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, is author of For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry’s Final Political Battle (2023).