The Man Who Would Be King - Donald Trump's Royal English Reception And The Regal Dreams Of The American Unwashed

Of course Donald Trump would like to be king, and who wouldn't with all that finery, elegance, courtiers, pomp, ceremony, and absolute authority? 

Americans loved the British television series Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs because of royalty manque. America might be all well and good with its Bill of Rights, checks, balances, and representative government but there has always been something missing.  We revolted against the crown but wish we still had a king. 

We tune in to Downton Abbey because we like to watch the super-rich, the English aristocracy, and their lives of quiet elegance.  In other words, all that we will never have.

Victorian England has always had a hold on America.  Empire, Churchillian values, confidence, reverence for God, King, and Country, the discipline of Eton and Harrow that made leaders of men; and above all, pomp and ceremony. 



In all Edwardian soap operas we may have rooted for the scullery maid or the footman, enjoyed the camaraderie and earthy enjoyment of the staff, but cared only for the toffs.

Victorian and Edwardian England seems remote, but the images of an even earlier England, that of the imperial King George who ruled us in the 1700s, are American emblems.  Our Founding Fathers looked like Englishmen, dressed like them, behaved as aristocratically as their forefathers, built English-style homes as graceful and elegant as the country manors of England.



Our Eastern city neighborhoods are English. Georgetown, Beacon Hill, and Rittenhouse Square are like South Kensington or Holland Park.

We Americans idolize our movie stars.  Although their glitzy, glamorous lives are far beyond our reach, they are not that far. Thousands of women have looked in the mirror and seen a face as classically beautiful as Hedy Lamar or as pouting and sexy as Scarlett Johansson. With a little luck and a few connections, one might be in Hollywood too, they say.

Aristocratic England is all the more appealing because it is remote and impossibly unattainable. We would fumble and drop our forks at Downton Abbey or trip over the Persian carpet at Montpelier.  English Lords and their estates, fox hunting, understatement, and chauffeurs are way beyond us.  We can imagine having a beer with Matthew McConaughey, but not the Third Earl of Hereford. 

The administration of John F Kennedy was called Camelot because it came as close to English aristocracy as possible for an American republic.  Americans disregarded the fact that Jack was a shanty Irish son of a crooked bootlegger and looked only to the sophistication, high culture, and royal taste of the president and his wife.  Robert Frost, poet emeritus of America read verse at Kennedy's inauguration.  Pablo Casals, renowned cellist played at state dinners.  Jackie refurnished the White House in simple, early American and classic European style. 

Kennedy formed a cabinet of his peers - Harvard educated men of a patrician New England background, as close to a royal court as could be assembled in America. The men had no titles before their name nor any honorifics after, but formed a group of advisers as loyal to the notion of royalty as any in the days of Queen Victoria. 

Camelot came close to Buckingham Palace but not that close.  Beneath it all Kennedy was as much of a bar fighter as his father.  The Chippendale, Townsend, and Revere furnishings; the elegant simplicity of master craftmanship and American painting; the display of manners, propriety, and the best and the brightest were expressions of how far the Kennedy family had come. From No Irish Need Apply to the White House. 

Whatever internal distractions there might have been in this display of English American aristocracy, the American public was charmed, entranced, and hungry for more.  The assassination of Kennedy and the assumption of power by his culturally diametric successor, Texan Lyndon Johnson, only served to fix the former President's image in the minds of the populace. 

There has always been an expressed distrust if not hatred for the rich in the American progressive community. The rich are monopolists, Wall Street manipulators, and venture capitalists who buy and sell people like slaves.  Yet this antipathy is in the abstract – an intellectual conclusion based on a populist, socialist view of history. Equality is the goal, they say – not just raising the lot of the poor, but lowering the standards of the rich.

Northern intellectuals hate the South and would like to finish the job that Sherman started – burn all vestiges of plantation life.  The very existence of manors and estates is anathema and a constant reminder of the evil history of the South.

Yet few of these Northerners can look at the architectural beauty, impeccably tasteful interiors, long, live oak-lined allées, formal gardens, and sweeping lawns without some envy.  Image and romance trump political philosophy any day of the year.



The genius of Downton Abbey is that it allows good, democratic-minded Americans, salt-of-the-earth and intellectuals alike to enjoy themselves.  They can admire, desire, and romanticize about the lives of the rich and famous, and revel in their fall.

Downton Abbey” is today’s “Gone With the Wind.” We enjoy the excesses it depicts partly because we know that the elite cavorting on our screens has had its real-life comeuppance. Better still, when it comes to class, privilege and wealth, “Downton Abbey” lets us have our cake and eat it, too. The show gives us a voyeuristic peek at the pleasures of being an Edwardian aristocrat, but it also allows us to feel smarter and better than the blue bloods of that period.

A few months ago there were 'No Kings' demonstrations by the progressive Left who feared that Donald Trump's stark arrogation of power signaled a coming autocracy and the the demise of democracy.  Of course this was all just predictable politicking - the new President was simply expanding the limits of presidential power beyond that of his predecessors - and the movement failed because millions of Americans saw Trump's bold restructuring of the society to a more originalist, politically fundamentalist one as much needed.  

If removing all traces of progressive idealism, fanciful notions of black supremacy, transgender epiphany, and socialist reformation meant a concentration of presidential power, so be it. 

At the same time there is no doubt that Donald Trump admires his counterparts in Russia and China, strong leaders who based their rule, their popularity, and their political ambitions on their nations' history.  Their Emperors and Czars created civilizations of high culture and imposing confidence, and thanks to them the best of human enterprise was realized.  

Each of the many Chinese dynasties created new wealth, conquered more territory, and extended moral philosophy, principle, and culture in a vast empire.  The Russian czars were no different and the reigns of Alexander and Peter established the foundation for enlightened imperial rule. 

 

Putin and Xi are embodiments of their nations' patrimony, and are historically patriotic as well as aggressive promoters their future.

The great monarchs of Europe - Henry VIII, Louis XIV, Victoria, Victor Emmanuel III - were responsible for the same extension of empire, promotion of high civilization, and the colonial rule which brought enlightenment to their colonies.  No historian denies the exploitive nature of colonial rule, but neither do they deny the introduction of modern ideas to formerly primitive peoples. 

The emperors of Rome created an empire the likes of which the world had never seen, and while there were duds - Caligula and Nero were memorable only for their dereliction - in the main the empire ruled with great enterprise and influence. 

 

It is with admiration for this brand of monarchy - one based on sound moral principles and high secular ambition - that Trump  looks to history. Athens, Rome, Persepolis, Alexandria, St. Petersburg, and Beijing - human society at its most evolved. 

Despite this millennia-old tradition of imperial rule and high culture, American progressives want to erase it, pretend that it never existed, airbrush it because of colonialism. Progressivism is a one-note Charlie political movement - history needs to be erased based on the secular idealism of 'inclusivity'.  The black and brown peoples of the world were victims of monarchy and that alone is enough to delete them from the record.   

So it is no surprise that a president who has inherited a mess, a society gone awry, one devoid of ethos and respect for its past, one characterized only by clashes of identity and a secularism which has no need for faith, traditional morals, or universal ethical principles might look to Caesar Augustus or the Sun King for inspiration; and why he is understanding of the historical imperatives of Russia and China. 

 

Donald Trump king? Of course not; but a renewed respect for monarchy and the greatness of kings, queens, shahs, emperors, and shoguns by all means.  These imperial leaders have given the world civilization, high culture, intellectual and artistic sophistication; and the only way they could have expanded empire, thought, and administration was through authoritative, unique, absolute rule. 

History has a way of cleansing itself, so none of these leaders lasted forever; but the principle was clear.  Better to have enlightened authoritarian rule and expand the boundaries of the known world than fumbling representative governments. 

So 'Hail to the Chief' and 'Long Live the King' resonate on both sides of the Atlantic.  Monarchy may no longer be in the cards for Americans, but we can still long for it.