The man who would be king
When, in February, Donald Trump tweeted his opinion that the press was “the enemy of the American people,” he was claiming that he was the embodiment of the American nation, rather than simply its president.
It is probably a stretch to suggest that his claim reflected a love of 19th-century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s works, which include “An Enemy of the People.”
I think it was more likely to have been an attempt to wrap himself in the flag. Using the Star-spangled Banner to insulate oneself from criticism is not a new expedient for U.S. presidents, and Trump will not be the last president to employ this tawdry device.
No U.S. president has ever represented the whole nation — in a democracy, even a half-hearted democracy such as today’s U.S.A., a president may claim at best to represent half of the population, or in the present case, rather less than half. He has no right to claim that any criticism of his own person is a slur on the nation.
Even “Tricky Dickie” Nixon didn’t attempt to make that claim.
But Trump seems to be afflicted by a megalomania that makes him think he’s above and beyond the restrictions of the Constitution.
His recent demand to be carried in the English monarch’s “Golden Carriage” is just one more instance of his overinflated ego. When he returns from his sojourn in England later this year, where he will almost certainly be subjected to the derision of British commoners and gentry alike, I’m expecting him to put in an order for golden coaches, crowns, ermine-trimmed scarlet capes and all the pathetic pomp and circumstance of decaying autocracy.
Failing that, I confidently predict that the president will claim, in tweet after tweet after tweet, that he attracted bigger crowds than the Queen ever did.
It will be left to the press to record the fact the crowds were jeering rather than cheering. There’s some doubt about whether Louis XIV really claimed “l’etat c’est Moi” (I am the State), but I’m fairly certain it’s what Trump is thinking.
Ed Healy Marystown