Column: Trump is in his Louis XIV era, and it’s not a good look
Saying President Trump is unfazed by Saturday’s national “No Kings” rally, which is vying for bragging rights as perhaps the the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, It’s the kind of euphemism that’s all too typical to describe his monarchical outrages.
Let’s leave aside Trump’s grotesque mockery of the protests – his message that evening, generated by AI. video posing as a crowned pilot in a fighter jet, dropping poop bombs on peacefully protesting citizens below. Instead, consider two other post-rally actions: On Sunday and Wednesday, “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced first that, on Trump’s orders, the military had struck a seventh ship off the coast of Venezuela, then an eighth ship in the Pacific, bringing to 34 the number of people killed in two months. no credible legal justification for strikes. Then, on Monday, Trump began demolishing the East Wing of the White House to create the gilded ballroom of his dreams, which at 90,000 square feet would be nearly twice the size of the White House residence itself.
As sickening as the view was – heavy equipment ripping up historic property as high-powered hoses doused the dusty debris – Trump’s $250 million vanity project is a small thing compared to a policy of killing non-combatant civilian citizens of countries we are not at war with (Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador). Yet all of these actions reflect the range of consequences of Trump’s total sense of impunity as president, from relatively symbolic to deadly consequences.
“In America, law is king,” wrote Thomas Paine in 1776. Not in Trump’s America.
Among commentators, the president’s desecration of the East Wing arouses at least as much criticism as his extralegal killings at sea. Many critics see the bulldozing of the People’s House a metaphor for Trump’s destructive governance in general – his other dismantlings of federal agencies, his vital foreign aid, his health care benefits and much more. The metaphor is indeed apt.
But what is more striking is the sheer sense of impunity that Trump constantly telegraphs, with the “I am the State” of a Louis Trump’s Versailles. (Incidentally, Trump’s impersonation of French emperors now includes plans for a sort of Arc de Triomphe near Arlington Cemetery. A reporter asked who it would be for. “Me,” Trump said. Trump bow.)
No law, national or international, constrains it, as far as the convicted criminal is concerned. Neither is Congress, where the Republicans are bending the knee. Nor the Supreme Court, with its right-wing majority of 6 votes to 3, including three judges chosen by Trump during his first term.
That of the court decision last year, in the case of Trump against the United States, Trump enjoys virtual immunity from criminal prosecution, but The American military doesn’t have that. protection when it comes to deadly attacks in the Caribbean Sea or any other orders from the commander in chief that might one day be deemed illegal.
The commander of the operation, Navy Admiral Alvin Holsey, would have expressed concerns about strikes within the administration. Last week, he announced his retirement after less than a year as head of U.S. Southern Command. He could be a coincidence. But I’m not alone in viewing Holsey as the latest victim of Trump and Hegseth’s purge of perceived non-loyalists at the Pentagon.
“When the president decides that someone has to die, the military becomes his personal squad,” military analyst and former Republican Tom Nichols said on MSNBC on Monday. Just like with kings and other autocrats: cut off their heads.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a rare maverick Republican, noted Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that in the past, the Coast Guard boarded foreign boats suspected of carrying drugs and, if contraband was discovered, took them and the suspected traffickers into custody, often gleaning information from top officials to make a real dent in the drug trafficking. But, Paul added, about one in four boats typically carried no medications. It doesn’t matter these days, everyone is the target of deadly force. “So,” Paul said, “all these people were blown up without us knowing their names, without any evidence of a crime.” (Paul was the only Republican senator not invited to lunch with Trump on Monday in the cobblestone Rose Garden.)
Monday, Ecuador said no evidence links a citizen who survived a recent US strike to any crime. Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the United States for murdering a fisherman during a strike in September, prompting Trump to call Petro a “drug leader” and unilaterally withdraw U.S. foreign aid. A Venezuelan said the Washington Post says all 11 people killed in the first known U.S. strike were fishermen; national security officials said According to Congress, the individuals were heading toward shore when they were hit. Meanwhile, the three countries and the American media contradict Trump’s claims that he is destroying and seizing fentanyl – a drug that typically comes from Mexico and is then smuggled overland, usually by American citizens.
Once again, it doesn’t matter to the King of America, who said last week, he is now considering land incursions into Venezuela “because we have the sea very well under control.” Trump’s courtiers say he does not need congressional authorization to use force. The Constitution suggests Otherwise.
Alas, neither this nor the law limits Trump’s makeover of the White House. He doesn’t have to submit to Congress because he appeals to wealthy individuals and corporations for the price. Former presidents, aware that the house is a public treasure and not their palace, voluntarily sought contribution from various federal and non-profit groups. After reports of the demolition debunked Trump’s promise in July that the ballroom would “not interfere with the current building,” the American Institute of Architects exhorted its members to ask Congress to “investigate the destruction of the White House.”
As disparate as they are, Trump’s ballroom project and his Caribbean killings came together last week. In a White House dinner To ballroom donors, Trump joked about sea strikes: “Nobody wants to go fishing anymore. » The paying titans laughed. Shame on them.
Trump acts with impunity because he can; He’s a lame duck. But other Republicans must face the voters. Continue the “No Kings” protests – throughout the November elections and beyond.
Blue sky: @jackiecalmes
Topics: @jkcalmes
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