The Ironic States Of America
The unlikely new folk hero for American No Kings protesters is His Majesty, King Charles III, who used his hereditary title and respect to argue in favour of democracy before an elected congress and president actively seized with the task of destroying it.
This single sentence seems to a comprehensive summary of the state of the United States today, with widespread cognitive dissonance, competing incompatible worldviews, and geopolitical fault lines that run across the entire country.
The King of England and, lest we forget, Canada tore much of it open with classic understated British humour in a 15-minute speech that went both literally and figuratively over the president’s head. It is worth listening to in its entirety.
There are two wildly competing realities in the United States. One pretends that the country is a model for democracy and freedom on the world stage — and already you are not completely sure which side I am referring to. Both claim the moral high ground on these issues, yet both often ignore and reinterpret the history for their own purposes.
After intervening economically, politically, and militarily in dozens of other countries throughout its history in the classic style of so many empires before it, the country has reached the inevitable kakistocratic death throes that can be expected when the Peter Principle is applied to the structure of an entire nation.
The great defenders of democracy have killed, in every sense of the word, more than a few democracies that did not choose to follow the American way or work in American interests. Iran and Chile are good examples, with the Shah and Pinochet being American preferences rather than the peoples’ choices.
After having free reign on the world, a significant portion of the population believe that the country is all-knowing and all-powerful, allowing someone like Trump who expressly does whatever the hell he wants with no understanding of nor interest in the consequences of his actions to take its reigns. The country has, after generations of accomplishment, been promoted to its level of incompetence.
In the American public discourse, there is a school of thought that believes the constitution, the cornerstone of their democracy, was written only for white people. That school of thought is not ephemeral or incidental, it is at the core of the entire administration today, and much of its support. They call themselves originalists, and then-law student Preston Damsky’s highly controversial paper on the topic asserting it is worthy of study, not only because of its profound implications for a ‘final solution’ level of racial purity for the United States, but because of the reaction it received since its 2024 release.
The paper argued that “We the people” in the American constitution only applied to white Americans, and for “shoot to kill” orders to be issued to prevent the “criminal” invasion of foreigners at the border, stating: “Criminal infiltration of the southern border has drastically increased in recent years, further accelerating the People’s dispossession.” A few parapraphs later, after setting up the implication that immigrants are criminal: “Thus, courts should order the federal government to militarize the border, begin construction of border defenses and barriers, and issue arrest or shoot to kill orders targeting criminal infiltrators at the border.”
His paper resulted in both an award being issued by the professor of his course, Trump-appointed judge John Badalamenti, and his expulsion from the university — which was overturned in court. It is a near perfect metaphor for the divisions we see.
What the people sharing those views actually hope to accomplish was spelled out, in painfully clear detail, in Project 2025, and has been systematically carried out since.
When these people talk about spreading democracy and freedom around the world, it is important to understand who they believe democracy applies to, and what freedom means to them. It should make us ask ourselves if we are sure of exactly what it is that we are defending when we speak of democracy, and if the message is received the way we intend it.
It takes us back to how we end up with the British monarch, whose own royal lineage has been documented across 12 centuries and 37 generations, apparently credibly defending democracy in a speech celebrating the independence of a nation from the alleged tyranny of his own ancestors.