As cultural critic and educator Neil Postman famously warned forty years ago, the American people were and are amusing themselves to death. The Age of Trump and the country’s rapid collapse into autocracy and authoritarianism are proof in the extreme of Postman’s hypothesis.
Trump again confirmed his contempt for American democracy when he declared recently that "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law." This is the statement of a president who believes that he is above the law and is a type of Caesar, king, emperor, Napoleon…. or worse. Trump also signed an executive order that states that he and his attorney general have the final say about the law in the United States. This is blatantly unconstitutional. The courts, and not the executive branch, have the final say about the law in this country. Not to be outdone, Trump then posted an image of himself on his Truth Social site depicted as a king wearing a crown and robes. Trump wrote the following caption, “LONG LIVE THE KING!” The New York Times reports that “The White House then reinforced the message, recirculating it on Instagram and X with an illustration of Mr. Trump wearing a crown on a magazine cover resembling Time, but called Trump.”
