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Why America needs a monarchy A Glorious Revolution could heal the nation

Trump, the consul? (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Trump, the consul? (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)


May 10, 2024   6 mins

Americans expect much from their president — some would say too much. He is not only regarded as head of state, but as an all-powerful economic wizard and social engineer, in addition to being a media celebrity. Candidates offer up a platter of promises only to face disappointment when they fail to deliver: it happened to Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and it is happening again to the incumbent.

Congress, as the body tasked with making laws and passing budgets, tends to encounter much less scrutiny and judgement. Nearly all citizens can name the president, but many can’t identify their local congressman: and it’s harder to direct blame at someone you don’t know. As a result, the institution has become a carnival-esque arena for all manner of political grandstanders and bomb-throwers. Surely there has to be a better way?

When faced with its own imbalance between executive and legislative prerogative, the English ruling class in 1688 enacted an institutional coup — the Glorious Revolution — and forged a settlement between king and parliament, concentrating the practical powers of government in the latter while confining the former to a lofty but ceremonial role. This entrenched what Walter Bagehot theorised as the distinction between the “efficient” and the “dignified” parts of the constitution. And it has stood the test of time, not just in the sceptred isle but in many of its ex-colonies, where British institutions, not least among them a Westminster-style parliament, have been shown to be conducive to political stability.

This was the model against which the revolutionaries of 1776 had fashioned their constitutional thinking. However, given the dysfunctional lot of their heirs, should Americans consider, if not an outright importation, then at least a creative adaptation of the British model? One year on from King Charles’s coronation, one can easily imagine an America in which the president serves as a symbolic head of state while Congress is granted the responsibilities of a Westminster parliament.

The idea is by no means new. Indeed, no less than the first president George Washington, widely seen as above partisanship, was feted as a semi-monarchical deity, with Alexander Hamilton viewing “Washington as George II and himself as Robert Walpole”. A generation later, in its battle with “King Andrew” Jackson, the opposition Whig Party also sought to emulate the English example by claiming (fruitlessly) that Congress, and not the presidency, should be the primary organ of national policy, as it was with the House of Commons. In the lead-up to the progressive era, a young Woodrow Wilson called outright for an end to the separation of powers in his 1885 treatise Congressional Government, arguing that the changing needs of the nation demanded a streamlined form of government. Later as president, Wilson, along with his rival and predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, set the stage for the powerful and expansive presidency that came to the fore in the 20th century.

But confronted today with the above problems, how far could the American presidency be reconfigured in the direction of a constitutional monarchy? Rather than try to answer the question in the abstract, we may focus on the last two presidents, Obama and Trump, as hypothetical model office-holders around whose traits the position may be tailored. After all, these two figures, in their own very different ways, have embodied the mystical and, therefore, monarchical aspects of the presidency more than most of its recent occupants.

In Obama’s case, it was during the fleeting (and ultimately illusory) “post-racial” moment heralded by his election as the first African American president in 2008, when the nation’s historic divisions appeared to subside: he seemed to be possessed of a halo not unlike Washington’s. In Trump’s case, his monarchical bona fides stems more from the unshakeable bond of loyalty he inspires in his base, which may fairly be described as sultanic in its intensity; though it is also not unlike that which existed between Jackson (scorned as well as a royal autocrat) and his raucous populist coalition. Evidently, the attribute of total impartiality demanded of a purely apolitical head of state, representing the people as a whole, may be too much to ask for in the present American context.

Perhaps, then, the British monarch is less a viable model for this experiment than, say, the ceremonial heads of state in parliamentary republics like Germany, Ireland and India, where presidents are largely non-political but usually arise from the political class and are nominated by parties. If we cannot imagine Obama or Trump as entirely shorn of partisan affiliation, they might, at least, abstract themselves from it once in office, as the German Bundespräsident or Irish Uachtarán are expected to do. But what exactly would US presidents do if they no longer have to govern? Would any chief executive content himself with cutting ribbons and attending funerals: in other words, with becoming like the vice president?

The answer may lie with our hypothetical office-holders, and their respective mystiques. For what truly unites Obama and Trump, despite all their contrasts, is the fact that they have always been far more effective and compelling as celebrities — that is, as generalised cultural fixtures (not unlike the late Queen Elizabeth) — than they ever were as administrators or party leaders.

Trump captured it best in his pre-presidential career: before he staked his brand with one side of the partisan divide and became a politician, he was simply the tough-talking businessman who appeared in tabloids, talk shows, films and reality TV, as he bought up hotels, casinos, an airline, and a football league. Never mind how successful or not these ventures ended up being: for many, he personified the very spirit of American capitalism, in both its vulgar crassness and gilded splendour. The New York billionaire served as exemplar and guru to other glory-seeking entrepreneurs, who saw their own ambitions realised in him.

“The New York billionaire served as exemplar and guru to other glory-seeking entrepreneurs.”

By the same token, Obama incarnated the promise of American meritocracy, rising from obscurity to the country’s most prestigious institutions, from the Ivy League to the White House: all the while, he wrote eloquent memoirs that read like the highest expressions of that distinct literary subgenre beloved of the American upper middle class, the college admissions essay, and modelled the prospect of social mobility for young Americans of colour. Nowadays, with lucrative Netflix deals, high-profile interview appearances, and gala charity events, this former president has returned to form as a celebrity, in his post-presidential career.

Their profiles, needless to say, appeal to differing sections of the country: Trump is as natural a spokesman for one as Obama is for another. And herein lies the model an American constitutional-republican monarchy could take: ceremonial presidents who can symbolise the hopes and high aspirations of the citizenry — with the caveat that, in these divided times, there are two separate and opposing value sets to be represented.

The imperative of unity may be advanced under this scheme by having the two figures serve together as joint co-monarchs or consuls, as in Ancient Rome or Sparta, with one each for red and blue America. Their roles would be to set the general direction of the national conversation; to guide the governmental process from a removed distance; and to give voice to the concerns of their respective halves of the country, in ways that may still be broadly political but non-partisan.

Though they would be stripped of their direct powers, they could use their moral authority to nudge the parties in certain directions: after all, both Trump and Obama are most useful when they are able to buck their party’s orthodoxies and to better intuit public sentiment as a result, such as when Trump president warned Republicans against cutting entitlements or when Obama advised Democrats to reject the excesses of identity politics. Best of all is when the two are actually able to agree on something, such as the need for public healthcare in America.

Meanwhile, Congress, in this scenario, would be newly empowered with executive as well as legislative duties, meaning its members would have to form ministries, composed of a prime minister and cabinet, and dependent for its existence on the confidence of the lower house. While the Senate would keep the six-year durations of its terms, the House of Representatives would be relieved of its fixed biennial terms: as it is, there are no stakes for individual members, who are free to threaten government shutdowns without fear of losing their seats (or their salaries), but the possibility of parliamentary dissolution for Congresses that fail to pass budgets should make for a more disciplined body that is better able to carry out its constitutional mandate.

For the same reasons, once members of Congress are entrusted with the responsibility of managing an executive ministerial portfolio — and once the heads of cabinet departments are made directly answerable to the legislature — Americans will have reason to expect far more from their representatives, in terms of both performance and presentation. This alternative Congress would give far less oxygen to the likes of Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ilhan Omar. The overall effect should be a more responsive and legible form of government.

In this America, there would be two kinds of elections: a regular partisan one for Congress and another special one for the co-presidency. For the latter, however, our red and blue consuls won’t have to run against each other, since they will be serving side by side. Rather, we may see the two candidates going on the road together à la Lincoln-Douglas, showing up at diners and country fairs, judging pie contests, throwing first pitches, and talking with ordinary people.

If the one formal meeting between Trump and Obama was any indication, this would no doubt make for a most awkward form of political theatre. Yet it would serve as a much-needed civic lesson for Americans, namely that it is worth putting on a good face for one’s fellow citizens, especially those from the other side of the political divide, no matter how maddeningly difficult it may be. After all, in the absence of kings and courtly rituals, it is this decorum — this patriotic artifice — that will, in Bagehot’s words, “preserve and sustain the reverence of the population” for their form of government.


Michael Cuenco is a writer on policy and politics. He is Associate Editor at American Affairs.
1TrueCuencoism

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Right-Wing Hippie
Right-Wing Hippie
5 months ago

Obviously, we couldn’t call whoever it ends up being a “king”; that would be unacceptable to our republican principles. We need a title more fitting, more American. How about “Commander-in-Chief”? Or maybe just “First Citizen”?
Of course, if we wanted to go with your “co-monarch” idea, it’s sort of based on the assumption that America’s too big for one man to govern alone, isn’t it? Let’s cut the country in half, right along the Mississippi; one half can be the Western American Republic, the other half can be the Eastern American Republic, each with their own president and vice-president. Once that’s been set up, I think we can allow the two halves of the American Republic to decide together which of them is going to be overrun by barbarians from the northern forests and which by barbarians from the southern deserts.

Martin M
Martin M
5 months ago

Maybe one half will survive for a thousand years longer than the other, like the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Or the putative Third Reich?

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
5 months ago

How about “Chief”?

Russell Hamilton
Russell Hamilton
5 months ago

Cultural appropriation? (The indigenous Americans have chiefs – sorry, joking). I think it would be a good idea to separate the head of state role from the governing role. (One of the things I don’t like about the Democrats dragging Trump through the courts is that he is a former head of state of the U.S.A. – a little respect please). But they hate him as a former, and maybe future, president. You want an apolitical head of state.

If the Americans had our sensible Australian rule of judges retiring at 70 years old, the President could nominate (Congress to approve) the head of state (5 year term) from retired Supreme Court judges. Or the field could be former heads/chiefs of the army, navy or air force because they have led lives of service, so respected, and aren’t usually overtly political. A broader field would be former state governors – more political, but experienced.

To avoid any status competition with the President, let’s just call the person The Head of State.

Kyle Pelletier
Kyle Pelletier
5 months ago

Oh! I’ll play — who gets to be Saladin?

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
5 months ago

The Emperor of America

Leslie Smith
Leslie Smith
5 months ago

The US Civil War was an attempt to divide the USA and we know how that worked. BTW, the USA is much more integrated now than in 1861. If you want to improve the USA politically, let’s ban lobbying and only allow campaign contributions from US citizens, not corporations, unions, and non-profits.

David Yetter
David Yetter
5 months ago

First Citizen, i.e. Princeps, from which Prince was derived, and which was the formal title used by some Roman Emperors.

Frederick Dixon
Frederick Dixon
5 months ago

I’m sure Prince Harry would make a fine king of America and Meghan would ADORE being Queen. Go for it America, what have you got to lose?

Martin M
Martin M
5 months ago

At least there is historical precedent for a younger son being shipped off to be a monarch somewhere else, although my personal favourite favourite way of acquiring a monarch is what the Swedes did when they got Marshal Bernadotte to be their king.

B. Hallawa
B. Hallawa
3 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

And Bernadotte ended up siding against Napoleon, who put him there, when he decided Russia must be invaded.

Liam F
Liam F
5 months ago

so good!

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
5 months ago

The USA already has a King: George Soros. He basically owns the Presidency. But maybe Harry and Meghan could be Court jesters? Oh wait… That won’t work either – they have no sense of humour.

Leslie Smith
Leslie Smith
5 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

You nailed it 100% – NY Post noted that Soro’s son, Alex, had been to the WH more than 20 times. How many members of Congress, State Governors, and other elected officials have that record? BTW, Geo. Soros stated in a circa 1998 CBS interview, that his objective was to make money, and he didn’t care who was hurt in the process – how many citizens of the UK were financially hurt by Soros’s financial machinations when he shorted the Bank of England? Soros is an anti-democratic, anti-western individual who’s out to destroy the USA and the West in general.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
5 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

There are far more conservative Kings (aka billionaires) in the United States. What are you going to do when Soros—the Jew— dies? Are there any other boogeymen out there?

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
5 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Oh dear, not that old chestnut. I’m Jewish myself – so I can say what I like about Soros. Sorry.

James S.
James S.
4 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

You mean like Jeff Bezos, Marc Zuckerberg, the Google chiefs, and all the Wall Street/finance types who overwhelmingly support Democratic policies and candidates?

Yeah, really conservative folks./sarc

Marc Ambler
Marc Ambler
5 months ago

With deep fake and AI, not only America, but the whole world, could have one king, telling each individual citizen what they most want to hear, eliciting their worship. This is what social media feeds essentially already do. While the embedded international technocrats get on with creating their globalist utopia. What to call him? He has already been titled – ‘Beast’, ‘Antichrist’.

Liam F
Liam F
5 months ago
Reply to  Marc Ambler

just call him Bezos.

John Leonard
John Leonard
5 months ago
Reply to  Liam F

Beastos?

Chris Whybrow
Chris Whybrow
5 months ago

Entrenching the two party system is a terrible idea. I can see the case for a ceremonial presidency, but one president is enough.

A D Kent
A D Kent
5 months ago

Interesting suggestion, but they could replace the President with The Terminator, the re-animated corpse of George Washington or (my personal favourite) K-9 off of 1980s Doctor Who, but as long as it remains a corrupt oligarchy nothing significant will change. Which means things will continue to get worse for everyone there and elsewhere.

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
5 months ago

The American political system was always imperial with the character of ancient Rome and some of the same separation of powers. It’s why the President is military commander-in-chief ruling like an emperor with slightly more modern checks and balances.

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
5 months ago

Why America needs a monarchy”
Make America Great Britain Again?

Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
5 months ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

Great wit! Very good!

Campbell
Campbell
5 months ago

Sorry, but I couldn’t get past the first paragraph without commenting…”all-powerful economic wizard and social engineer, in addition to being a media celebrity”…this American (52, descendant of colonists & 19th Century immigrants) regards the POTUS as the head of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Nothing more, nothing less. He or she doesn’t need to be my friend, popular, good-looking, ambidextrous, tri-lingual, tall, and/or devoid of flatulence…competence and the ability to walk up a flight of stairs un-aided would be great. Putting the fear of Allah in our enemies would be nice. Encouraging our people to teach their children how to read, write, and do arithmetic would be a bonus as well. I’ll get back to the article now…

Nathan Sapio
Nathan Sapio
5 months ago
Reply to  Campbell

Same

John Leonard
John Leonard
5 months ago
Reply to  Campbell

As though the British monarch doesn’t “engineer society “! Subjects?! Not a celebrity?! They are the biggest industry in the UK!

Damon Hager
Damon Hager
4 months ago
Reply to  John Leonard

Honestly, our monarchs don’t engineer anything. They bring in foreign tourists, and old ladies at home and abroad like to read about them. I suppose, for some, they’re a symbol of national unity, like milky tea and fish and chips, but they’re much less central to British life than Americans imagine.
In many ways, Americans are far more monarchist than us. After all, your political “dynasties” actually wield power.

David Yetter
David Yetter
5 months ago
Reply to  Campbell

I agree that is the proper role for our Presidency, but alas, the description given in the article is how the Presidency has come to be regarded by American culture at large. This is a problem, and while I very much like the American Founders’ original design for our republic, the deformations to that design created by the 16th and 17th Amendments, and the creation of a massive administrative state thanks to Wicker v. Filburn turning the Commerce Clause from a limit on the Federal Government’s power into carte blanche for the Feds to regulate every aspect of our lives on the plea that they “influence interstate commerce”, along with Congresses since at least the 1940’s refusing to legislate and instead simply empowering the administrative state to make regulations with the force of law, has rendered the head of the Executive Branch far more like an Emperor than the Founders ever intended.

Nathan Sapio
Nathan Sapio
5 months ago

Anathema. Restore the president to simply executing laws passed by the deliberative body, force Congress to step up to its necessary role that it has not been fulfilling for 20 years.

Make Congress great again, make the president the functionary he’s supposed to be, free of cult of personality wishes.

Rick Frazier
Rick Frazier
5 months ago
Reply to  Nathan Sapio

To your point, the constant implementation of executive orders by one president that are then reversed by the next president is no way to govern a country. So that futile exercise should be stopped. If something is really important, put it to legislation. Next, adopt term limits for members of Congress. I believe these two changes would make a significant, positive difference.

Richard Ross
Richard Ross
5 months ago

Given the UK’s current governmental situation, this may not be the best time to urge that the US emulate the British model.

David Lindsay
David Lindsay
5 months ago

Joe Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, has endorsed the former Meghan Markle’s obvious ambition to become President of the United States, but it is little Lilibet, who was also born in the United States, who will be 55 in 2076. What a way to mark the Tricentenary, by electing a President whose first cousin was King George.

And notice that even half a century hence, that would still be assisted no end by a name as WASP as Sussex. Rather than one that bespoke the 45 million members of America’s largest ethnic group. Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, say. Or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Or Oldenburg. Or Wettin. Or Markle.

willy Daglish
willy Daglish
5 months ago

The most important thing is to separate the two, very different and incompatible, jobs – Chief Executive and Head of State. Nobody can do both well so even the best fall between two stalls, neglecting one to concentrate upon the other. Even on Wall Street, it is generally considered bad for a company to combine the roles of CEO and Chairman of the Board.
The Chief Executive will, necessarily in a democracy, be a politician. As such, he will be divisive, never having the support of moch more than half te citizens.
The Head of State, by contrast, must be a unifying force with fairly little serious opposition. Think our late Queen Elizabeth II. This is what we British have slowly achieved over centuries.
A word of warning, however. The HofS should be someone who doesn’t want the job! If you hold an election for the job, that person becomes a politician even if they were not to start with. Thence all the divisiveness remains.
Create a special “Electoral College” of all living University heads, retired generals and admirals, retired senior judges (not from the Supreme Court as they are all political). Aim for 1000 of them, lock them in a room and don’t let them out until they have agreed on one of their number getting the job.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
5 months ago

Just…. no. As an American, this is absolute nonsense. I’ll admit to being an admirer of the British people, but part of that is because they’re not like Americans. There is no way this would work. The differences are too great. Some of the polarisation is over superficial issues but some of it is very real and results from the divergence of culture and economic interests that occurs in all large nations/empires. A parliamentary government that could rule unilaterally just by getting 51% of the vote would quickly come to represent the coasts and the population centers and the resentment from the rest of the country would get even worse than it already is. Had this been tried, the US would have long since broken up into who knows how many independent states who would probably fight each other constantly. That’s just the nature of Americans. They’ll start shooting rather than be ruled by people they didn’t elect thousands of miles away. I’d have thought you folks over there would know that better than anybody.
The founding fathers could have made the American government an exact copy of the British parliament. They didn’t, because they knew better than that. They hadn’t spent all that time, effort, and blood rebelling against a government that ruled them unilaterally from far away just to recreate the same system. They tried to do better, and since the US is still here and still mostly democratic despite its huge size, I’d say they mostly succeeded. I’ll grant that the American government is slow, cumbersome, inefficient, and difficult to manage. I can obviously see how it seems utterly dysfunctional to outsiders, but what you have to remember is that the USA is not the size of the UK. It’s the size of all of Europe. It’s not like governing the UK, or France, or Germany, or Poland. It’s like trying to govern them all together all at once in a single system. You can already see how difficult this can be by looking at the present day EU. If I’m not mistaken there was a vote several years ago where one of those EU countries even voted to leave it because they didn’t like the idea of being ruled by bureaucrats thousands of miles away. Who was that again? At any rate, if the EU is still around in two and a half centuries to be able to claim to have lasted as long as the USA has, it will probably be because of a lot of difficult choices and compromises were made along the way that tweaked the structure and nature of that government to prevent a collapse or address some problem or another, and that EU government will probably be just as arcane, just as inefficient, and just as unsightly for outsiders to look at as the American government is today.

Leslie Smith
Leslie Smith
5 months ago
Reply to  Steve Jolly

You’re right, and BTW, Canada is experiencing precisely this issue, i.e., that Ontario and Quebec control the Canadian Parliament, leaving the Atlantic, Prairie, and West Coast Provinces resentful of their hegemony.

Colorado UnHerd
Colorado UnHerd
5 months ago
Reply to  Steve Jolly

“That’s just the nature of Americans. They’ll start shooting rather than be ruled by people they didn’t elect thousands of miles away.” I’m afraid that’s going to happen anyway, unless we ashcan the Electoral College, consider ranked-choice voting, rethink the allocation of two senators to every state regardless of population, and otherwise reform how we choose our elected representatives. As it is, too many Americans already feel — justifiably — that their votes don’t matter, that they are, in fact, “ruled by people they didn’t elect thousands of miles away.” It’s now much easier to imagine those bullets flying — and the nation breaking apart into opposing factions — than it was a generation ago, or even a decade ago.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your comment, but personally have less faith that our current, increasingly dysfunctional system is capable of long enduring.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
5 months ago

What we really need is for some of the power of the federal government to make policy to be delegated down to the states. Let Texas arrest illegals and send them to California. Let Arkansas ban abortions and California pay for any woman to have one. Agree to disagree and let people have their own self determination. That’s the only way out of our present dilemma that doesn’t involve, as you say, a lot of violence.

It’s a catch 22. If the Senate were population dependent the rural states would be ignored fat more than they already are. If the electoral college was eliminated no candidate would campaign in flyover country. Power, unlike economics, is a zero sum game. It can be split different ways but there’s only so much and you can’t give to some without taking away from others. There’s no moral or culturally acceptable guidelines for how power is distributed that anyone can agree on, particularly in a large and diverse country. The only thing to be done is reach a practical compromise, which is what the Constitution always was, a compromise. The issues of small state vs big state and urban vs. rural are literally the same arguments that Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams argued over in 1789. Both sides had to compromise or they’d have got nothing and there would be no USA. They foresaw these types of disagreements.

What they didn’t foresee was how technology would change or how history would unfold. They didn’t foresee the concept of total war and how much national coordination it would require. They had only a vague idea of how global economic forces worked and limited monetary theory.

This is one of those issues where there is no compromise that will satisfy everyone. The post WWII era where everybody mostly agreed culturally and the economy was thriving enough to smooth over yhe differences is over. It was an anomaly. The present dynamic is the default state for the USA and far more representative of American history in total.

Part of our present dilemmas truly is psychological. We are not accustomed to the acrimony, the division, the polarization and thanks to the Internet, TV, social media, etc., we are bombarded with it daily from all sides. It seems frightening because it’s very different than what most of us grew up with, but if we closely examine history, we find that the present levels of division are closer to normal than the post WWII era was. America can and has endured worse. If we can get past the shock, the anger, and the disillusionment to accept that the system isn’t perfect and lower our expectations from the national government, it will help a lot. If stubborn people instead resort to trying to force a level of conformity, things can go bad very quickly. I don’t know what will happen. There are reasons for fear but there are reasons for hope as well.

James S.
James S.
4 months ago

No, no, a thousand times no! The Electoral College and 2 senators per state are guardrails against a tyranny of the majority. Ranked choice voting, “jungle primaries” and other “innovations” will accelerate the coastal enclaves ruling over the interior. We need to get back to letting states be laboratories of democracy within a framework of federalism.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
5 months ago
Reply to  Steve Jolly

The Founding Fathers had a knowledge of the Bible, Greece, Rome and European history. Consequently they created a constitution for the benefit of emotionally mature responsible independent adults who understood that degree of self control was needed to put in more than take out of a system. The constitution is for a people blessed with common sense and backbone,not a feckless, indolent, venal and cowardly. It would appear that the USA only has a minority of people who have the qualities of the Founding Fathers and those in the 18th century.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
5 months ago
Reply to  Steve Jolly

The size of the US as a single entity is ameliorated by it’s Federal system of governing.
Something the UK should have done rather than the disaster of Blair’s UK Labour party putting in place devolution, which has only increased divisions in those regions that devolved.

James S.
James S.
4 months ago
Reply to  Steve Jolly

Spot on, Steve!

John Leonard
John Leonard
5 months ago

The mistake you make is in suggesting that a democracy requires “symbolic “ head of state. This is wrong. The president is not above the law, as we are seeing. The president does not have any hereditary bloodline it is protecting. Does the president actively work for the people, or passively look on? You want to introduce a nonproductive spectator into a modern democracy? It’s just reactionary in case you’re wondering.

J Boyd
J Boyd
5 months ago

Yes, the Americans saddled themselves with a Constitution that is fundamentally unworkable.
For the English, it’s like watching your adolescent kids make a pig’s ear of everything just to try to prove you wrong.
Bless them….

John Leonard
John Leonard
5 months ago
Reply to  J Boyd

It’s fundamentally unworkable but is working for hundreds of years. Enjoy your social immobility and title of subject. Liberty in the UK? No where near it.

David Yetter
David Yetter
5 months ago
Reply to  J Boyd

It was supposed to be unworkable, except in time of crisis. “He governs best who governs least,” embodied in a document setting up procedures of governance. What you are regarding as bug is actually a feature.

Steve Hamlett
Steve Hamlett
5 months ago

I’ve been pushing an American Constitutional Monarchy to my small and shrinking Facebook following for a while now. My would-be monarch is basketball star LeBron James. Sure, he made a few bonehead moves as a youngster but has matured into a pretty reasonable adult. That’s not easy in the NBA. A big plus is that nobody hates LeBron James. (Except maybe a few dedicated enemies of the LA Lakers.) That’s also not easy in the NBA. Finally, the man is 39 years old. One of the best players the game has ever seen, he can’t play too much longer. He’s gonna need a second career, beyond being a talking head on the subject of basketball. He needs something bigger, greater, to challenge him in the second half of his life. They already call him ‘King James.’ Why not?

Fafa Fafa
Fafa Fafa
5 months ago

These are all atavistic ideas. What the US needs is a god-like AI, plugged into every source of information in the world and have a general (“god”)-API able to hook into any software architecture, write fair laws free from bias and enforce them free from bias. Somebody somewhere may already be writing the code.

David Yetter
David Yetter
5 months ago
Reply to  Fafa Fafa

And we’ll call it “the Beast”, and everyone will be required to have a chip with a neural interface connecting their brains to it, conveniently implanted in their forehead or right hand (users’ choice). The idea will catch and spread to the whole world.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
5 months ago

The Glorious Revolution took place because the Stuarts( due to French influence ) replaced rule through consultation and consent ( Anglo Saxon ) with Divine Right of Kings and did not consult Parliament. The English King had consulted Parliament over taxation since 1300. Elizabeth I had no conflict with Parliament- read her speeches.
All   the USA needs to do is heed JFK’s inauguration speech and that on MLK on character. In 1960 the vast majority of Americans understood the emotional maturity needed to accepting the responsibility in being the defender of the Free World, today very few Americans.
Harold Wilson said Wedgewood Benn grew immature with age, so it would appear does the USA.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
5 months ago

A ‘Monarchy’ for the USA would be such a bad idea, the President cannot be judged by Trump or Biden.
Probably the most successful US President in the last 70 years was ‘ Ronald Reagan ‘
He wasn’t considered an economic wizard or a social engineer, he just talked and acted on commonsense.
The West could do with a dose of commonsense in it’s politics right now.

Justin S
Justin S
4 months ago

Most Americans do not understand what we have in the UK by way of a monarchy.

We are immensely fortunate that over several hundred years, we have – and this is really important to start with – cut the head off a king.

It is vital that you first cut the head off a king. That is a lesson that needs to be learned by everyone who comes after. We the people own the axe.

Now once that is established, you can get down to the business of taking away all of the Kings political power, and all of his political and civil service patronage.

Then you give him lots of ceremonial duties, and posh coats and gold and shit, and you cover the job in RESPECT.

Now you are getting the idea.

3 centuries later and the monarchy are nicely neutered and tamed and they know their place. Now they are magically useful.

Why? Well because they have no power at all. They are the nominal, the pretend ultimate – while in reality all power lies with the 1) the civil service, and 2) political power in parliament.

Yes the civil service is the real power in Britain. No political party truly controls Britain. They nudge and push the civil service and the bureaucrats go along with and co-operate only with what they decide. The fact they are mostly currently infiltrated by socialist marxists means in Britain we are in essence a soft socialist country ruled by the left wing, ‘woke’ blob.

Like a monarchy? Way, way less accountable and way less removable. The woke blob controls all the levers of power. It controls the media – who agree with the woke blob, and both entities seek and intend to control all thought and all action.