curious phenomenon has arisen in the first year of President Trump’s second administration: The (clearly manufactured and forced) “No Kings” movement. What is this all about? The No Kings website describes its reason for existence as follows: “Because this country does not belong to kings, dictators, or tyrants. It belongs to We the People — the people who care, who show up, and who fight for dignity, a life we can afford, and real opportunity.”
The earnest insistence of some of the participants I’ve personally encountered goes something like this: “America was founded for the very purpose of getting rid of monarchy and creating a democratic government. Trump is behaving like a king and therefore betraying the principles of the Constitution and the American Founding.”
Let us put aside the bad faith (or, at best, the incredible ignorance) of the arguments that insist President Trump is behaving anything like an absolute monarch. Deploying the National Guard to quell rampant violent crime or sending ICE agents to deport massive numbers of illegal immigrants does not a dictator make. Trump is using his authority to go after criminals — hardly the stuff of oppressive, tyrannical regimes. Nothing Trump actually does looks anything like monarchy, despotism, autocracy, or whatever other exaggerated and inapplicable term one wants to use. Pretending Trump is doing anything more than exercising presidential authority to make good on the very issues (crime, immigration, etc.) that he was elected to address is just that: pretending.
Put aside, too, the hysterical notion that Trump is going to seize power, defy the Constitution, and run for a third term in 2028. “But he is selling ‘Trump 2028’ hats and ‘flirting with the idea of serving a third term,” they’ll say! If the Left doesn’t realize that Trump is trolling them, I don’t really know what to say.
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