In May of 2023, the world watched as Charles III was crowned King of England after his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, passed away at the age of 96. Very few people alive could have remembered her coronation almost 71 years before and most Americans' only familiarity with that medieval ritual comes from viewing Netflix's "The Crown."
The UK Parliament prepared a detailed briefing on the history and protocol of coronations and it's quite fascinating. Much of the ceremony is symbolic these days, but the intent is clear. It is designed to make it clear that the new king is the legitimate monarch, ordained by God. Back in the day, this required that all peers pledge their fealty to the king one by one. It was apparently a long and tedious process. But since they abolished most of the hereditary peerage back in 1999, they shortened the process this time, with the Archbishop of Canterbury pledging to be "faithful and true" and Prince William kneeling before his father and saying, "I pledge my loyalty to you and faith and truth I will bear unto you, as your liege man of life and limb. So help me God."
Then they called upon the people to pay homage and everyone in the Abbey said together:
God save King Charles.
Long live King Charles.
May The King live forever
Back in medieval times, this would all be followed by a huge banquet and it was a given that to remain in the King's favor nobles and vassals would need to offer the king a monetary tribute.
I couldn't help but think of all this as I read about all the billionaires and foreign leaders making the pilgrimage to Donald Trump's golden palace down in Mar-a-Lago. The coronation (or what we used to call the inauguration) hasn't happened yet, but he's already being feted like a medieval king. And unlike the British monarchy, which has eliminated the paying of tribute to the king, here in America — where we supposedly cast off such practices in our revolution — our new president is busily collecting payments and demanding fealty from his liege lords and foreign allies. And he's making it very clear that he will not be happy if they don't come across with plenty of lucre to fill his royal coffers.
We have, of course, observed every Republican who can get his or her hands on some formal wear rushing down to pledge their undying loyalty. And we saw the unpleasant spectacle of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau being treated like a vassal by Trump, who declared that if Canada doesn't like his tariffs they can become a state and Trudeau could serve as governor, as if that would be a much greater privilege. He also met with his fellow far-right autocrats, Argentine President Javier Milei and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and has reportedly invited several foreign leaders to the inaugural, including Chinese Premiere Xi Jinping (who has declined the invitation.) No head of state has ever attended the inauguration according to State Department historical records because the United States used to pride itself on its peaceful transfer of power not being like a coronation in which foreign leaders paid tribute to the president. That's a very quaint idea today.
But nothing compares to the media moguls and corporations who are racing to outdo each other to get into Trump's good favor or spare themselves from becoming the object of his anger. We all know that the man who never leaves his side these days is Elon Musk. He spent over a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump get elected, has a great deal of business with the federal government and has an apparent burning desire to turn the country into the same grotesque shadow of its former self as he's done to his social media company X. Trump is clearly thrilled to have the richest man in the world acting as his majordomo.
Musk's closeness to Trump may have inspired other billionaires to try to get in on the action. The Wall St. Journal reported on this embarrassing phenomenon last week under the apt headline: "The Week CEOs Bent the Knee to Trump." It describes the scene as Trump went to Wall St. to celebrate his Person of the Year Time Magazine cover:
Gathered behind red velvet ropes were senior executives at Visa, Meta Platforms, Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab and Citadel, according to people who were present. Real-estate and aerospace magnate Robert Bigelow was spotted in the crowd, as was investor Bill Ackman...
Titans of the business world are rushing to make inroads with the president-elect, gambling that personal relationships with the next occupant of the Oval Office will help their bottom lines and spare them from Trump’s wrath.
As the Journal reports, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, both billionaires who own media companies made ostentatious trips to pay tribute to the new president after having been on his enemies list in the first term. They each pledged a million dollars to Trump's inaugural (which is basically a personal slush fund with virtually no ethics requirements) as has OpenAI's Sam Altman.
In fact, media owners and corporations are making many grand gestures to curry favor with the new president. The owner of the LA Times effectively took over its editorial board insisting that it be more Trump-friendly. And in one of the most egregious examples to date, over the weekend, ABC settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump in which he had sued them and anchor George Stephanopoulos. Legal observers say there was no chance in hell that Trump would have prevailed on the merits and, in fact, has failed spectacularly in similar lawsuits. Yet ABC News agreed to pay 15 million dollars to his (as yet non-existent) library fund and forced Stephanopoulos to apologize.
Day after day, Trump holds banquets at his Florida palace where wealthy, powerful people come from all over to pledge themselves to him. They clearly believe that it is not in their interest to oppose him in any way, instead they are giving him huge gifts and throwing themselves at his feet in what is surely a vain hope that he will return their loyalty. But they don't really understand the dynamic. They are there to serve the king, not the other way around. If it pleases him to dispense his favor then he may do it. But it's all about him, not them.
The real question is why these vastly wealthy people are so eager to be subjects. You would think with all their money they could afford to have some pride and integrity. But maybe that's really the one thing that money can't buy.
