Commentary: Do we want a king?

America is crying out for a king in 2024, whether by election or by coup, it seems. The new royalist MAGA monarchy party is willing to do it either way, as long as it gets what it wants.

Here is the definition of a king: A king wants to be on a pedestal above everybody else, and I mean everybody. A king claims to have God’s blessing and God’s protection for his authoritarian rule. MAGA got that when their king candidate miraculously ducked a bullet at a critical time. A king wants to pass his kingdom on to a son, not a daughter. A king wants to have immunity from prosecution for any and all misdeeds he commits, which are usually legion. A king convinces fellow politicians in the legislature and the judiciary that the country is ready for this new form of government, necessitated by all the terrible threats to our way of life, foreign and domestic.

The foreign threat comes from brown-skinned folks who want to experience life in America. The king hates these largely innocent people because they may not be open to supporting his kingship. On the other hand, he is happily willing to become besties with all the dictators of Europe and Asia and allow them full and complete access to his court. He allows them to cross our borders clandestinely at first in order to influence our elections, and then openly later, in order to influence our economic and political policies. Why does he love them so much? Because they are autocrats like he is.

The domestic threat comes from the middle class and the working poor, who want economic mobility and human rights. Highly contemptible what these ignorant commoners want. Don’t they know they aren’t smart enough to have rights? Many of them are Democrats who want rights for women and minorities, the ones clearly least deserving of rights in God’s kingdom.

But consider this, America. History teaches that kings, like those long dynasties of kings in England, crack down hard on anyone who gets surly and does not support the king with all her heart, might, mind and paycheck.

A perfect example is the justice system under a monarchy. The American colonists decided to throw off the tyranny of the British king in part because England’s monarchy had the death penalty for well over 100 different offenses. There were that many threats to the king’s power there. Our governments here in America had the death penalty for only about six offenses, which were threats to ordinary people’s lives, liberties, property and happiness.

In England, cutting down trees in the king’s forest brought the death penalty. The theory here that was passed down from generation to generation was obvious to all. The king had a natural right to all of the land of a nation by right of conquest. That is what the first king of England, William the Conqueror, claimed after the Norman conquest, and he passed on that right to his successors as well. The king was sovereign, like God. Everything was his, and he only passed off some of his land and some of his power to those noble politicians who supported him in all things.

The death penalty was even applied, or at least threatened, for stealing property worth more than a shilling. Again, by what authority did poor folks think they had a right to food and shelter, clothing and learning? They had a right to none of that unless the king bestowed it on them.

England applied the death penalty for “witches,” basically women who were too uppity to give much respect to the patriarchal system of government in England. They thought they were just as good and as deserving as men. Fie on them!

Kimball Shinkoskey of Woods Cross, Utah, is the author of The American Kings: Growth in Presidential Power from George Washington to Barack Obama.