"It's Good to be the King"
“As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?”
—Donald Trump, 6/4/2018
Citizens of the world, fear this statement. This is a summation of what Mr. Trump believes he is entitled to as President of the U.S. When a democratically elected leader begins to speak in terms of her or his “absolute” right to something, our collective ears should perk up and we should begin to question the endgame strategies being employed by said leader.
It’s not like this is the first hint of what Mr. Trump believes his powers as President are or, at least, what he wishes they should be. Remember when he claimed that all foreign policy decisions boil down to ultimately what he believes, even in the face of strong opposition by those tasked with understanding the realities of the situations in their particular areas of expertise? ("I'm the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that's what the policy is going to be. You've seen that, you've seen it strongly."—11/2/17) Or how about when he was congratulating China’s Xi on his ascension to lifetime hegemony and quipped that “maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day” back in March 2018?
Then there’s his childish tendency to duck any and all culpability for any and all accusations of wrong-doing on his part. How many times have we heard that he has done nothing wrong and that, even in the face of a preponderance of evidence that shows his guilt and/or complicity, he plays the victim, claiming that a hostile media is reporting “fake news” to tarnish his otherwise sterling character or that political opponents are unfairly attacking him? I recently viewed a laundry detergent commercial where a father finds various messes made by one of his sons. Each time the father stumbles upon one of these stains, the prepubescent son automatically pipes up with his “I didn’t do it” defense. This is Mr. Trump’s default as well. (If only we could wash Mr. Trump’s stain away with some ultra-powered detergent….)
What we are seeing, friends, is the evisceration of the governmental body, a wrecking ball taken to the Constitutional structures that have, for better or worse, stood solidly since ratification. Mr. Trump is playing this role, the role of a lifetime, to further the aspirations of the oligarchic class, the corporate and monied ringleaders who have worked for years to elevate themselves to the loftiest of heights and relegate the rest of us to subservient, serf-like status. Mr. Trump and his merry band of criminals making up the Cabinet and the various governmental departments are working overtime to deregulate and destroy all protections and avenues of redress and benefits for the common citizens and uphold the property rights of the upper economic echelons and protect the exploitative, extractive industries that are continuing to unleash ecological hell upon all of us.
It is as if Mr. Trump styles himself as some Bourbon King. Look at his Trump Tower residence, all gilded opulence and idealized beauty, a modern-day Versailles in the heart of New York City. He has called the White House a dump as it doesn’t live up to his standards. He feels that he is entitled to whatever he wants and unapologetically claims it—women, property, whatever. His version of reality is so incredibly skewed. He has no real understanding of how the peasants--errr, citizens--really live. Mr. Trump, obviously, doesn’t feel as if the rules the rest of society follows apply to him. He holds in disdain those things--people included--that aren’t what he considers beautiful. He detests “losers” and touts his unending line of successes, branding himself as the ultimate winner. He demands unquestioning loyalty from his sycophants and readily disposes of those who cross him. Mr. Trump, in his narcissistic vanity, attempts to cover up his blemishes and signs of ageing in progressively grotesque style in order to retain his own “beauty.” Remember the iconic line from “History of the World, Part I” when Mel Brooks, after several acts of pure, unadulterated debauchery turns to the camera and says, “It’s good to be the king.”? How many of you could hear Mr. Trump saying something similar in the Rose Garden in front of a group of reporters?
The comparisons can go on and on, but the one that is the starkest to me is Mr. Trump’s claim of his absolute right to pardon himself, just as historical despots of all stripes claimed that they had the absolute right to determine the course of their particular demesne and the lives of its people, with no perceived accountability. If this is true, Mr. Trump can pardon himself and all of his cronies for whatever crimes he wishes to absolve them and himself of and there is little that can be done to stop him. He has already tested his pardoning power—Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza, and Scooter Libby, to name a few. Each of these people were accused and either convicted of or plead guilty to the very type of charges that Mr. Trump and his coterie of miscreants will most likely face in the near future.
The dissolution of our government’s structures and the restating of its primary responsibilities must end. Mr. Trump does not rule by divine right, anointed by our Creator, with some god-like power over our lives based on his daily whims. Mr. Trump is accountable to the citizenry of the United States. He supposedly works for us, as a humble public servant. He is not a dictator, not a king. He is not above the law, immune to the rules and regulations under which we all live. He is not the final arbiter of justice, nonchalantly granting clemency to those he deems as being adequately loyal and condemning those whom he perceives have slighted him with either an up or downturned thumb. The slope is getting mighty slippery and the rocks at the bottom look awfully sharp.
