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Republicans say Trump should not be King [1]
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Date: 2025-03-11
A recent poll by The Economist/YouGov contained two interesting questions:
Does Trump want to be King?
Should Trump be King?
The answers were sliced and diced into many different demographics. But political party drove the starkest contrast. Dems overwhelming said Yes to the first question and Republicans said No. Amazingly BOTH Dems and Republicans said No to the second question.
Dems (% yes) Repubs (% yes) Does Trump want to be King? 82 17 Should Trump be King? 2 15
I was not surprised by this. My Trumper acquaintances (not a statistically valid sample size) have been denying that he should be King. I had assumed they were not representative of the entire heap. Apparently that’s not the case.
Given that Repubs are not OK with having a King, this polling data seems to provide a ray of hope and an avenue of leverage for flipping some votes. We need to get these people to understand the real Trump.
The trick is to break through to the edge voters who can still reason. Forget the hard core MAGAs. I’ll list some possible lines of attack below, but first, some critical background information:
Unitary Executive. Trump and his minions believe in the Unitary Executive theory, “…that Article II of the Constitution places executive power in a single person, the president, who gets to control every high-level official who executes federal law (and plenty of lower-level ones, too).” According to the Unitary Executive theory the regulatory agencies are not independent. They must follow the orders of the President regardless of the laws from Congress that created them.
The Unitary Executive theory is complete rubbish. It breaks the doctrine of SEPARATION OF POWERS, which goes all the way back to the eighteenth century (Montesquieu) and is the foundation of the US Constitution. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton insisted that the president lacks unlimited removal power over employees of federal agencies.
Federal agencies are created by Congress. The regulations that the agencies write can exist only because of laws that Congress passes. When the agencies write regulations, agency lawyers scrutinize the law that Congress passed to make sure that the regulations remain within the boundaries of the law. It would be absurd to think that the President could unilaterally change any regulation without Congress passing a new law, or for the President to fire any employee of in a non-political position of an agency that has been created by Congress.
Do we really want the President directly supervising the Federal Election Commission? ANY PRESIDENT?
The Constitution says:
In Article I Sec. 8 Congress shall have Power “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
in Article II Sec. 3 “…he (the President) shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…”
It’s real simple. Congress makes laws and the Executive Branch executes them. If CONGRESS SAYS THE AGENCY IS INDEPENDENT, THE F*&%G AGENCY IS INDEPENDENT. If Trump prevents the agency from enforcing the regulation that was legislated by Congress, he is trying to become a King!
Now I don’t expect anyone on DK to use this argument on a Trumper. But I do think it’s something you ought to have in the back of your mind.
Here are a few talking points that could be used to at least get your republican leaning acquaintances to start thinking:
John Kelly, the longest serving chief of staff for Trump 1.0, said that Trump wants to be a dictator. He said, Trump is “the only president that has all but rejected what America is all about, and what makes America America, in terms of our Constitution, in terms of our values.”
Executive Order 69 says that Trump can countermand any regulation written by a federal agency, thus subverting the Constitutional power of Congress. EO 69 “…basically says, ‘The law is determined by my will, period, and anyone who disagrees either has to fall in line or, by implication, we can fire you because you’re not permitted to express opinions about the law contrary to mine.’ So welcome to either monarchy or dictatorship,” according to Frank Bowman, a law professor and former federal prosecutor.
EO 69 “…basically says, ‘The law is determined by my will, period, and anyone who disagrees either has to fall in line or, by implication, we can fire you because you’re not permitted to express opinions about the law contrary to mine.’ So welcome to either monarchy or dictatorship,” according to Frank Bowman, a law professor and former federal prosecutor. Do you want more? Trump’s legal team argued in January of 2024 that directing SEAL Team Six to kill a political opponent would be barred from prosecution given a former executive’s broad immunity.
These are a few topics to get you started talking to your MAGA leaning friends. Do you have additional ideas?
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