A president steeped in constitutional lore might have been offended by claims he’s acting as a king.
But Donald Trump and his entourage responded with mockery to weekend “No Kings” protests by millions of Americans — embracing the narrative in a way that explains his growing hubris and belief that he has unchecked power.
The president and Vice President JD Vance this weekend both posted AI memes to social media depicting Trump in a crown. The one Trump shared was a mocked-up vision of the president flying a fighter jet emblazoned with “KING TRUMP” appearing to dump raw sewage on protesters. In Vance’s troll on Bluesky, a site popular with liberals, prominent Democrats knelt as supplicants in a royal court before Trump, the divine and absolute ruler.
It was a clever political trick. MAGA supporters can blast anyone who takes offense to the posts as lacking a sense of humor and being prim. The posts also trivialize protesters’ gravely serious claims that America is witnessing a wannabe autocrat. But they also subtly advance the thesis that Trump is all-powerful and immune from dissent, an attractive proposition to voters who like a strongman.
Trump’s post is not only juvenile but also betrays striking contempt for tens of millions of Americans he ostensibly leads and for the concept of democratic free speech. He’s far from the first major political figure to express disdain for voters they don’t agree with. Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, all had their moments. And a sense that liberal elites disrespected heartland Americans was fundamental to Trump’s rise to power.
Moreover, Democrats seem to have done little self-reflection over whether their aggressive push to implement their progressive values alienated more conservative Americans and contributed to their own defeat in 2024.
But the president’s social media baiting would be easier to laugh off if it weren’t for multiplying actions that reinforce his pretensions to absolute power and the obliteration of constitutional curbs meant to ensure kings don’t again rule America. He’s implying there’s no room for those who don’t support him and showing he’s willing to force them into line.
Whether such leadership is forcing the country inexorably closer to a political and social fracture or a pride-induced fall by Trump and his gang will become clear in the months to come. The stakes are especially high amid a government shutdown the president appears to have no desire to end.
But as Trump’s behavior becomes more imperious and as opposition gathers — from street protests to more universities refusing to bend to his ideological will, and judges temporarily halting his orders for troops to enter US cities — tensions and divisions are rising.
The president shows no sign of changing course. He called Saturday’s mass protests a “joke” and described them as “very small, very ineffective.” The people who took part were “whacked out,” Trump said.
“When you look at those people, those are not representative of the people of our country,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.
