Maybe people really want a king?

Sometimes you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

In case you missed this bit of trolling on the official White House social media account, let me share this with you.

I kid you not, the official account.

Presenting himself as a king.

Now, maybe it is just trolling. Lots of what Trump does - and the larger right-wing infosphere, too - is exactly that. They want to see if they can get a rise out of you and then laugh when they do.

Yep, just like a 10-year-old.

But Stephen Colbert had a great line the other day: "Every troll is a trial balloon."

A trial balloon is politics-speak for when a politician says something controversial to see how the public will react. Lean into it if there's no pushback. Run away if there is.

In other words, he's testing us.

And playing fire with the republic.

Look, Trump - and together with Musk - have been hard at work centralizing power. They're indiscriminately purging the executive branch of many longtime and experienced staffers - especially in the law enforcement agencies, like the FBI and the Justice Department, and in the military.

They've wholesale canceled some agencies and withheld spending - agencies and spending plans duly created by Congress - in other words, the law of the land.

And recently, Trump demanded that the independent agencies created by Congress - made independent by Congress - like the FCC and the Federal Reserve, clear policy decisions with them.

In place of many of the high-level staffers that have been fired, Trump has installed people from his orbit. Generally, they have lightweight qualifications for the job. So why them? And why elevate them? Because they are loyal to him. And will be even more so now.

Oh, and tack on the January 6th pardons. Now he's got a committed group of thugs willing to carry out violence in his name, again personally loyal to him for their freedom.

In fact, I have to mention, they've started strutting their stuff. Recently, Enrique Tarrio - the leader of the Proud Boys group, one of the key organizers of the January 6th attack - was recorded at a conference harassing the police who defended the Capitol and have been most vocal about the threat Trump poses.

Okay, centralizing power. Asserting authority in areas under Congress' control. Purging the government and installing loyalists, especially in law enforcement and the military.

It all feels too much like setting the stage for real kingship, dictatorship - too much so for my tastes.

But hey, tastes vary.

Obviously, Trump's supporters love this. The craven Republicans in Congress seem willing to go along so far.

But what about the rest of us?

I fear that, generally, that there's a dark mood in the country, that people have decided that the current system is failing, and they're willing to play along with these power grabs to get things done.

This is a perennial problem with liberal democracy.

Any system that disperses power to many different people - and that allows many different voices to participate - will be noisy, slow, and frankly, annoying.

At some point things have to get done - people's real problems need to get addressed.

In recent decades, we've been heavily polarized, with partisanship - tribalism - at historic highs. The spirit of compromise necessary for a democratic system to function smoothly has broken down.

Now, everybody shares some blame. That said, I have to say, Democrats have often stood ready to compromise. Republicans have often refused. It's not for nothing that the Republican Party got the nickname of the "Party of No" a few years back.

Regardless, most Americans don't really care. They just care about the paralysis. And therein lies the danger to our democracy and republic.

Public frustration with inaction is completely understandable. However, I worry that a growing number of people appear ready to permanently break the existing system - if not entirely burn it down - in order to get something, anything, done.

People love action. It's effective. It's satisfying. It's fun - cinematic. Democracy is slow and messy. It's dry and technical and, frankly, boring. Stuffy.

I wish people were more aware of what they could be losing. But I'll be honest - it's hard to get people to care.

People have a lot going on in their lives, and they might feel they don't have the time to wait around for the democratic niceties.

One data point on this. Not exactly on point, but...

On a recent podcast from the Bulwark's Tim Miller, he highlighted a poll from the United Kingdom - not the US, mind you - but still.

The poll said 52% of Gen Z said the UK would be better off if it had a strong leader in charge that didn't have to bother with the Parliament. And 32% said things would be better with the military in charge.

Sigh.

Now, for Trump 2.0's part, Musk recently made the argument that, in fact, it's the bureaucrats that they are canning that undermine democracy because they stand in the way of the will of the elected president.

Okay. We can hash that out, if we want.

But again, we don't elect kings. We don't elect vessels of "the will of the people".

We elect presidents. Presidents who have to live within our Constitutional system, who have to play with the other branches. Checks and balances and all that.

Speaking of those elections, in case you've missed it, Trump repeatedly muses about whether he will defy the Constitution and run for a third term.

Maybe this is another one of those examples of trolling.

Or maybe it's a trial balloon.

After January 6th, we've seen how far he will go to hang onto power.

Let's wrap this up.

At best, I worry that most Americans don't have any idea that our system of government is being undermined by the centralization and personalization of power.

At worst, I think they might want it.

Good luck, America.