Donald Trump has at least twice in the last few days called himself a a king, so he apparently believes he is. Not only is he completely ignorant of the history of this country in the American Revolution, but he is arrogant and delusional to call himself that, even if we pretend it was in jest. It’s outlandish and odious. More than that, what he is doing RIGHT NOW ignoring what Congress has voted for while dismantling the government with the help of unelected Elon Musk is traitor-material.
Before writing any more. I didn’t vote for Trump. But even if I had, I certainly did not vote for a dictator a King. He is not King and unlike Republicans in Congress, who are appeasers abdicating their rightful role as, at the least a check and balance on the presidency, I do not and will never bow to a pretend king who is trying to go far beyond his oath of office while destroying the country. And I have to add, not only no king but I cannot be subservient to a crooked man attempting to be elevated above his position in contrast with the history and values and mythos of the founding of this country.
Remember Schoohouse Rock? No More Kings
In history, and I am reading a book right now about this, there were those at the founding of this government that did want a king, King George, the Loyalists, of which a lot of them fled to Canada. They LOST and the patriots won the day. Trump is attempting to tear that all down. You might say “oh, he’s joking” but it shows that Trump has no sense of decency at all”.
Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, and Roger Williams need to explain to the American citizens why Congress is not fulfilling its role as a third branch of government. And why it’s okay for them to, with the input of citizens who elected them, to allow Trump to thwart their decisions and votes about money coming from taxpayers. We may not all agree about how money is going to be spent when Congress votes, but it’s definite that the Executive Branch (ala the President) cannot make the decisions about that money, hold it back, allocate it some other way, and a STRONG Congress that is trying to live up to its authority would not allow this. It is flipping off the American pubilc who, during the time ANY bill is discussed, can call, write, view them talking on Cspan, or show up in person at their offices, and are being cut out now over their subservience to a man who is NOT in charge of doing this but is supposed to uphold the law.
And Trump is not only not doing that but he is holding back money that Congress voted upon. And, horribly, getting rid of the Inspector Generals. Congress also has oversight committees (and in fact, it is their purvue to CREATE executive committees, to make sure the money is being spent correctly. In other words, if there is waste and fraud (and certainly in any large government that is there to serve the people, everything will not be smooth, the job to look for it isn’t some guy who, with his goons, is looking at all the data, and firing people. (That[s not to mention that Elon Musk not only ha inspections going on against him by the very agencies he’s dismantling because he has conflicts of interest and has broken the law) There are a ton of lawsuits going on against this man who clearly does NOT care about his role in America and wants to be, as he said, dictator.
But it’s beyond the pale that he is now not only acting like a King but calling himself one. Note that this pic is coming from the White House account. Ugh. HE IS NOT A KING
Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul
I remember reading in FTTimes in 2022 o that there was someone at his club that called him king. … “He runs the country, but he’s also the king. There’s no other president that will be the king”. I ask him if I can quote him on that by name but he declines “Some readers won’t like that. Some readers don’t like royalty”. This was during the time Trump was not even the president, cannot speak to the delusions of that from a Mar-A-Lago club member. BUT this is not whether somebody has an opinion and wishes they had a king. We already settled this at the founding of this country when we rejected kings.
This year the surfacing difficulty is Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s plan to steal Illinois’ tax dollars and deny our citizens the protection and services they need.
Let me offer a few examples.
20 million Americans, 700,000 of them here in Illinois, will lose healthcare coverage — if Congressional Republicans are successful in their effort to cut the Affordable Care Act — and rural hospitals across Illinois will be shuttered.
The Trump administration cut off funding for food safety inspectors for nearly a month, impacting more than 70 meat and poultry facilities in Illinois. Without these inspectors, the supply chain collapses, prices go through the roof, from farmers to truckers to meat packers to retailers, jobs will be lost.
Meals on Wheels programs — which home deliver 12 million meals per year to 100,000 seniors and people with disabilities in Illinois – are on the federal chopping block.
This is real. The new administration and the Republican Congress and Elon Musk intend to take these programs away. For all the Illinoisans watching at home – let me be clear, this is going to affect your daily lives. Our state budget can’t make up for the damage that is done to people across our state if they succeed.
There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.
I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.
As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.
The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.
The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.
As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.
I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.
The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.
I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.
I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next?
All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.
I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor …. according to the best of my ability.”
My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.
If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:
It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.
Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.
Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.
