Trump vs. George III: A No Kings Comparison

Our own mad king is repeating many of his predecessors' greatest hits

As I prepare to head off to DC’s No Kings protest against our precipitous slide into authoritarianism, it seemed apt to recall the last time Americans rose up in opposition to a deranged monarch. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson and our rebellious Founders sought to justify their resistance to royal authority to the wider world—to “declare the causes which impel them to the separation”—by cataloguing “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

In an apparent effort to bear out the dictum that history repeats itself—the first time as tragedy, the second as farce—Donald Trump has managed to recapitulate a surprising number of the specific outrages with which the Founders charged George III, perhaps showing that for all the world has changed over the past two and a half centuries, the core impulses of tyrants remain a constant. Let’s review.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

While Trump’s public rhetoric is directed at “illegal” immigrants—a category that did not really exist at the time of the American founding—his actions have made clear he’s also determined to make essential legal immigration far more difficult, with occasional exceptions for affluent whites. He plans to radically slash the number of refugees the United States admits, has stripped hundreds of thousands of legal residents already here of there protected status, and has unconstitutionally sought to expel legal residents as punishment for political speech.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

Since so much of what Trump does is plainly illegal, he routinely finds himself at odds with the courts. Judges have therefore become the targets of an unprecedented wave of continuous invective from the White House and its allies, branded “activists” and “radical leftists” for having the temerity to enforce statutory and constitutional restrictions on executive power. This has, unsurprisingly, provoked a slew of threats from Trump’s loyal myrmidons. Republican leaders have threatened to strip courts of funding and impeach judges unless they consent to obsequiously bless the administration’s unlawful actions.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

This batch hardly requires explanation, does it? Trump is in the process of converting ICE and the Border Patrol into his personal militia, and has flooded Democratic cities with National Guard troops and federal law enforcement against the wishes of the elected governments of those cities, and despite overwhelming opposition from the actual inhabitants of those cities. At best, they mill about at enormous taxpayer expense doing nothing of value, just to normalize the sight of soldiers in the streets. At worst, they behave like brutal armed gangs terrorizing the population—with the clear support and endorsement of the administration.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

His signature issue, aside from immigration: Though economists are virtually unanimous in regarding tariffs as economically harmful and counterproductive, Trump has by executive fiat imposed these taxes on American business and consumers at truly draconian rates. These have repeatedly been found illegal by the courts, though it remains to be seen whether his compliant Supreme Court majority will find some pretext for endorsing this brazen usurpation of legislative power.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

Trump has notoriously, and without due process, shipped hundreds of undocumented immigrants to foreign gulags known for gross human rights abuses. Often this was done on the thinnest of pretexts, such as insisting that innocuous tattoos constituted proof of violent gang membership. And he has announced repeatedly his desire to do the same to American citizens.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

Though as yet Trump has not found it unnecessary to actually suspend the legislature, the hallmark of his second administration has been governance by executive order and the routine usurpation of legislative prerogatives. He has imposed taxes unilaterally by abusing emergency authorities, impounded funds lawfully appropriated by Congress, and dismantled entire agencies established by statute.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us

Donald Trump ended his first term by inciting a riot in the nation’s capital, part of a broader scheme to cling to power by fraud and violence. As this was somehow insufficient to convince votes of his complete unfitness for any position of power, he has doubled down in his second, openly boasting of his plans to wage a “war within” where American cities and their populations would serve as a “training ground” for the military.

I can’t do better than to quote Jefferson one last time on what a free people’s response must be when a ruler has made his intent to subjugate them so plainly manifest:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.