Trump fantasises about being king and he doesn't care which rules he breaks to become one
Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has been testing his power. He has ignored court orders, fired civil servants, limited journalist access to the White House because they refused to change their editorial stances and he has accepted a 747 from a Gulf autocrat. But the past few weeks have felt like something in the wind is shifting as Trump lashes out.
Ever since his high-profile break-up with Elon Musk, he has been on a tear to test his own power. The protests in Los Angeles have been largely peaceful: any violence and looting has been well within the militarised capabilities of the LAPD. And yet, Trump federalised the National Guard above the wishes of a state governor and a city mayor, something that hadn't been done since LBJ used the same power to protect civil rights protesters in the 1960s as schools in Alabama were desegregated.
This weekend's military parade feels like it's from the same place as Trump looks to project a kind of machismo in a display that would feel more suited to the streets of Moscow than Washington. He has called for the 'liberation' of Los Angeles in language that smacks of the rhetoric of the Bush family's adventurism around the Middle East to liberate countries from any government mildly critical of the United States.
America, for all of its nationalism and patriotism, has never been fond of these kinds of military parades, certainly not since the end of World War II. Tanks rolling through the streets on the president's birthday do not seem to follow in the country whose existence is tied to the overthrow of an all-powerful king. The army that was notionally being celebrated was founded explicitly to prevent any one person from having too much power over the nation.
And that is the kind of power that Trump is exploring. When he posted a graphic in February of himself in a crown, the caption reading 'long live the king', he was engaging in a fantasy he's long had, living in his gilded Oval Office and the rich trappings of the fanciful old monarchies.
He paraded troops through a sparse crowd in DC, a powerful juxtaposition of the US soldiers deployed to harass lawful protesters in Los Angeles.
He is unafraid to use the military for his own gain. Just last week, he stood in front of a stand of soldiers at Fort Bragg, selected for their political beliefs and physical appearance, and used them as a prop in his political theatre, defying long-held conventions and rules against the military being involved in partisan politics. No uniformed member of the US military can participate in anything political, something long cherished in the US. But Trump sees the military only as a projection of the kind of strength that his brand of politics admires, and he's willing to break the rules to claim that mantle.
Trump is testing the limits of his power. He is defying court orders that block him from deporting legal residents, and his administration does so anyway. He is silencing protesters with shows of overwhelming force. A US senator has been kicked out and handcuffed for trying to ask questions of the people in charge of the immigration crackdowns that are tearing through American society.
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