'Those pashas were quite something, weren't they?', the President said to Marco Rubio, his Secretary of State who, like his boss had never visited Turkey but since a boy had always admired the opulence and sybaritic pleasures of the East. The kings of England had their pleasures - Henry VIII went through six wives and innumerable concubines, but Buckingham palace was austere, all formality, powdered wigs, bustles, waltzes and only a pavane to liven up the palace.
Cardinals, bishops, and priests were everywhere, gossiping, bitching, and plotting against the king, all under cover of the Vatican and the devious Pope Clement VII, angry at Henry's challenges to his authority, obduracy, and heresy. There were all the trappings of royalty - king, queen, courtiers, banquets, caparisoned guards, moats, knights and ceremony - but it was still a starched, squibbed, tight affair.
As a boy Marco read fairy tales about the mysterious and enticing East - the Arabian Nights, stories of Suleiman the Great and his harems of the most beautiful women from the Middle East and the Levant, the opulent palaces of Constantinople, Cleopatra's barges on the Nile - and dreamed one day being surrounded by Palestinian, Egyptian, and Libyan princesses.
'Yes, Mr. President', Marco replied, and nothing more needed to be said, for he and his boss shared the same romantic vision. What could be better than the life of a pasha, Trump had often remarked to his National Security Advisor and Secretary of State? Not only did he have complete and absolute power, but he lived in the lap of luxury, choosing a different beauty every night from his harem, dining on pheasant and venison, the most delectable sweets, nectar from the ripest peaches and apricots, clothed in silk raiment, the scent of frankincense and myrrh everywhere.
What was the White House compared to that? Even King Charles III of England who recently concluded a state visit to Washington, had it better than he, thought the President. At least he had a hundred liveried servants, the Beefeater guards, the royal carriage, and the magnificent gardens of Westminster. Yes, he was married to that old bat, Camilla and had turned down Diana, the world's sweetheart for her; but still, the perks of the throne were compensation.
The days of the pashas were long gone, the President knew. His nemesis, Erdogan, was in Istanbul now, reversing the last traces of the glorious Ottoman Empire and turning the country into another Iran - burqas, chadors, veils, muezzins and an Islamic caliphate. What was he thinking? Right there in the presidential palace archives were paintings of the magnificent harems of Sultan Suleiman and his vizier Ibrahim Pasha; or Rustem Pasha, grand vizier under Suleiman the Magnificent; and he turned this down for a cossetted, doughy, Muslim wife and Koranic rule?
'If only they knew', said President Trump, laughing at the No Kings protestors outside the window on Pennsylvania Avenue, 'how right they were; but right church, wrong pew'. He had no intentions of becoming a petty dictator, an Idi Amin, Bokassa, Mobuto, Deby, or Kagame; nor a Putin or Xi, men of limitless power and authority recalling and reconstituting the empires and dynasties of the past. These men all had a certain appeal, but it was to the ancient pashas of Turkey that he looked for inspiration.
'Goddam this country!', Trump shouted, not at the America of free enterprise, military strength, and vast wealth, but the censorious, Puritanical, hair-shirted America which demanded sexual fidelity and eternal chastity. Melania was a trophy wife who looked great in Balenciaga, Dior, and Chanel, but if he had his pick from a harem? Now, that would be fit and proper for the President of the United States.
For all his talk about reversing diversity, equity, and inclusivity the President had a very eclectic taste in women - at least recently, ever since he was President and entertained beautiful women from the Middle East - in an official capacity certainly, but in his company nonetheless. What he would give for a night with Usha al-Noor, Jordanian beauty in the retinue of King Abdullah II, or Emriye Hassan Egyptian princess, descendant of Nefertiti and with the dark, sultry looks of Cleopatra or Maifari Diallo, Fulani princess.
The President was known for bimbos - tarty blondes and runway queens - but his heart lay in the darker versions of feminine beauty. Not too dark, he admitted to himself. He could not imagine himself in bed with a Nigerian woman, no matter how hard he tried; and with an American ghetto queen even less. He was neither prejudice nor racist, just the idea of that nose, those lips, that hair....He knew the brothers loved booty, but that put him even farther off.
The President had met Dominique Strauss-Kahn at G-7 meeting during his first presidency. He knew of the Frenchman's reputation for being a latter day Lothario, Don Juan, and Count de Valmont, a man of many women, delighted in all of them. When accused of being a procurer and frequenter of prostitutes, he said, 'How was I to know they were prostitutes? All women look the same with their clothes off'.
Strauss-Kahn's philandering never hurt his chances for the French presidency - the French had no American hang-ups on that score - and Trump wondered what would happen, now that he was in his second and final term as president of the United States, if he were to do a European turn? And why not a harem? Of course not a real Turkish one with thick drapes, incense, grape arbors, and balms; but the principle of the thing?
There was nothing in the Constitution about a president having mistresses. Censure had only come from the public and Kennedy, Johnson, and all the first executives before them had to keep their affairs quiet. So if a president had served his two terms and would return to an active, glamourous private life regardless of public censure, then why not?
'Look at them', the President said to Marco Rubio as they both looked down at the No Kings rally - an assortment of the most unattractive, obese, hectoring women in one place that he had ever seen. 'I wonder where they get them?', the President asked.
Of course the President admired Putin and Xi and even had a grudging respect for the ayatollahs of Iran whom, he had to admit, had ruled without opposition for fifty years. Any man of supreme power wants absolute power. Who wouldn't? Suffering fools was almost more than he stand - Chuck Schumer, the Squad, the screechy bitches of the Left, the uppity black Congressmen harassing his Cabinet members. The whole lot of them should be put on a slow boat to China, and if he had imperial power that's exactly where they'd be.
Just look at Bukele of El Salvador. He swept the streets clean, jailed tens of thousands of gang members without trial and is cruising alone with an 85 percent approval rating. 'What about the rights of honest Salvadorans to live in peace?', he said, criticizing the Left for championing the rights of criminals and dismissing their victims.
This concentration of power was one thing, thought the President; but to live in sybaritic pleasure was another altogether. Why should Suleyman the Magnificent or Rustem Pasha be the only ones to rule in splendor? If I have to go to war with Iran, the President thought, I want to come home to a silken, cafe au lait Alexandrian princess.
The irony of all this of course was that the No Kings protestors were exactly right. Donald Trump did want to be an emperor, a sultan, a pasha, but not for the reasons the fools on the avenue thought. No, he would always rule justly and in accordance with strict conservative principles. It was just the after hours perks of Supreme Leader that appealed to him.
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