It’s been a doozy of a week in the US — or maybe I mean it’s been a terrible year, or was it a decade? Reading King Charles III’s comments alongside the Supreme Court’s voting rights decision offers a sense of where we are as a nation. No need to draw out the suspense — we’re living in an authoritarian state.
Like many historians, I’ve been yelling from my little, fact-lined mind palace for a while now. Everything Trump has done underscores why authoritarians, and the European fascists of WWII before them, fear nuanced discussions of history.
I’ve been trolled repeatedly for echoing what art historians regularly say about rigid systems and art production: fascists rarely make good art. The criticisms usually boil down to: 1) you’re just saying that because you hate fascism; 2) you think art should be things that look like nothing; 3) your people poop in the street. (To which I say: yes, but that’s not why; no; and not my particular people — and even then, that’s about systemic failure, so don’t fault the people.) Latter-day faux fascists’ approach to art is not unlike Trump’s approach to the spoken word.
Fascism’s appeal lies in offering a simple answer to life’s complexity while flattering its followers’ sense of uniqueness — even as their contrarianism is thoroughly predictable. People with little capacity for ambiguity love systems built on simplicity. In a world with so many signs and so little meaning, the reassurance of a one-to-one correspondence between image and idea is comforting.
But that feeling of having the right answer evaporates once reality sets in. Hitler erected many a monument. He still lost. He had a simple solution for a complex world, and fascists rarely make good art for the same reason: the complexity of human existence is both our salvation and our downfall, and art is there for every good and bad choice along the way.
While I was speaking of 20th-century European fascism, the United States’ authoritarian regime bears striking similarities to the Hitler and Mussolini playbook. Trump’s cronies control most major newspapers; speaking out against him is treated as a crime; he’s working to curtail free elections. He’s also deeply invested in neoclassical architecture in Washington, DC. Like his faux-fascist allies, Trump operates on a simple sign-and-meaning equation: a fancy capital means a strong leader. The visuals are meant to shut down dissent, not invite it.
Trump’s belief is that the majesty of a physical space can polish the stupidity of his prose. Remember, Trump has never been successful on his own. He used Daddy’s money to fail. Then he got producers to chop up his scenes to make him seem smart — to people who were easily controlled. His first term was bad. His second is worse, and that’s the closest he has to a consistent achievement. He has no inner reserves to draw on.
The counterargument to authoritarianism was made recently by King Charles III. As someone whose family was a subject of the British crown, I unutterably despise having to side with the monarch of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms — but in tough times, you take the allies you can get.
Charles would have worked with diplomats and speechwriters to craft text that both made his points to the world at large and flew soundly over the heads of MAGA. His speech was not addressed to the Trump administration. He was speaking to those whose intellect hadn’t been checked out. Rather than the pandering polemics Trump delivered on the campaign trail or the meandering verbal vomit he produces in office, Charles employed metaphor and verifiable fact. The text was masterful. Will MAGA take 10 business days to understand it, or will they never get there at all?
At every turn, Charles alluded to Trump’s failures. The text is long. Allusion rather than pathos is Charles’ MO. He brings us to slain presidents, NATO, and the Appalachians. At each point, his clarity stands in pointed contrast to Trump, who understands run-ons and non sequiturs but not carefully crafted arguments. At the heart of Charles’ comments — delivered in a room that included the body meant to check Trump’s power — was a single message: no one is above the law. Repeated mentions of the 1215 Magna Carta remind everyone that for 800 years, leaders have been held to account, and they need to continue to be.
This speech was not done on the spur of the moment or written without care. Charles was demonstrating that diplomacy is a carefully calibrated skill that requires people who can handle complexity. It is fundamentally at odds with the soundbite leadership Trump espouses.
That this kind of message had to come from the British monarch might be fitting. Many of our national woes stem from the slave trade, brought to us by our British ancestors. Trump is, in many ways, the final product of that system. Early on, the British worried that poor white indentured servants would see their plight as similar to that of enslaved people. Starting with Jamestown, the British worked to drive racial wedges between the poor so they would not rise up together. Many of the people who profited during the Civil War were descendants of the original English settlers, and they largely found new ways to succeed during Reconstruction — wealthy white Southerners profited while keeping that wedge intact between Black and white Americans. That same wedge between poor whites and Black Americans was the catalyst for Trump’s success.
But here is where I point out that Charles’ speech stands in opposition to Trump’s authoritarianism. He did not deny those historical wrongs. He did not claim a simple path to solve the problems Trump has created (other than making him comply with the law). He shared the complexity of our world in language to match. He wanted people to understand him through their strengths.
In the end, our moment in American history will likely be remembered as an example of the worst of government — and of how the people’s appetite for perfection and high individualism sank a country. They’ll look at the moral grandstanders and the accelerationists with the same disdain they direct at the anti-intellectualism of MAGA. Americans didn’t center each other; they centered hate.
That the Pope and the King of Great Britain had to team up to remind us that the greater good requires putting individual differences aside is, in itself, historic. But their comments on the state of the US were also given in such extraordinary language. They didn’t scream. They didn’t use jargon. The weighty issues were discussed with complex language. They wanted the discourse to improve, in part in hopes that we all rise to the challenge.
This is why I feel so strongly about art in fascism and authoritarianism. There are other thought systems that also diminish thought for efficiency, like capitalism. All systems that need us to focus on simple ideas make us worse as individuals. Simple art demeans the viewer. It assumes your intellect is too simple to grasp visual complexity. It assumes your soul cannot be moved by anything but the most easily understood. But humans, time and again, have shown that the more complex the art they consume, the more complex their thoughts become. We rise to the quality of our culture. When culture is depleted, so are we.
And here’s my full annotation b/c I couldn’t help myself: * “Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of Congress, representatives of the American people across all states, territories, cities, and communities.”* He reminded Trump and every elected official that they’re representing the whole nation, not just the people who bribe them or the ones they like. Similarly, in his use of territories, one cannot help but wonder if this was a jab at Trump’s suggestion that the President of Puerto Rico. The US has always been a strong Urban core nation, and calling out cities is a reminder of this. The Boston Tea Party did not occur on a farm.
Thank the American people for welcoming us to the United States to mark this semi-quincentennial year of the Declaration of Independence. And for all of that time, our destinies as nations have been interlinked. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.’
I’ll be speaking in a way you might not understand, but rest assured, I’ll be f’ing your stuff up. Ukraine and Iran will understand, as will Canada. You chose not to understand the only language you speak will not matter, because everyone else will. And I’m here because we started this together. I’m not relishing this too much, but I wasn’t planning to come back to stand up for the people who were foisted on my 4 Great-Grandfather 250 years ago.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we meet in times of great uncertainty; in times of conflict from Europe to the Middle East, which pose immense challenges for the international community and whose impact is felt in communities the length and breadth of our own countries.
The elected officials in this room might not be included in the ladies and gentlemen if they’re the reason we’re living in uncertain times. These challenges are ginormous because of the ignoramus who won’t lead.
**“We meet, too, in the aftermath of the incident not far from this great building that sought to harm the leadership of your nation and to foment wider fear and discord. **
Did you all lose your everloving minds? This man decided to start a revolution run by the dumbest folks who have more guns than sense. You allowed the nation's greatness to be compromised, thereby weakening it. This is on you for letting Trump off with treason.
“Let me say with unshakeable resolve: such acts of violence will never succeed. Whatever our differences, whatever disagreements we may have, we stand united in our commitment to uphold democracy, to protect all our people from harm, and to salute the courage of those who daily risk their lives in the service of our countries.”
People born to my role died, like a head chopped off, because of democracy. My own great-great-grandmother was a racist ogre who subjugated many a nation for profit, including India and Zimbabwe. Do you understand how many generations of my family have been against democracy? Yet, I, who is born to my job, have to come here to remind a government that claims to be patriotically upholding the home of the free, what democracy is? I seriously cannot believe the level of stupidity in this room that has made it so I had to show up to this sham government in a city where faux assassination attempts go down regularly to do this.
“…the modern relationship between our two nations and our own peoples spans not merely 250 years, but over four centuries. It is extraordinary to think that I am the 19th in our line of sovereigns to study, with daily attention, the affairs of America.”
Daily, and I mean daily. If Charles is tired, imagine how we are?
“So, I come here today with the highest respect for the United States Congress, this citadel of democracy created to represent the voice of all American people to advance sacred rights and freedoms.
He didn’t even need to cross his fingers. We heard the shade.
“As you may know, when I address my own Parliament at Westminster, we still follow an age-old tradition and take a member of Parliament ‘hostage,’ holding him or her at Buckingham Palace until I am safely returned. These days, we look after our ‘guest’ rather well – to the point that they often do not want to leave. I don’t know, Mr. Speaker, if there were any volunteers for that role here today?
In my country, we follow the rules. We would never have had the full line of succession in the same room at an unsecured hotel, particularly given the hack who is in charge of the FBI. Moreover, we respect the ways things are done for the sake of history. We’re not just rolling over all protocol because a reality TV star told us to.
“As I look back across the centuries, Mr. Speaker, there emerge certain patterns, certain self-evident truths from which we can learn and draw mutual strength.”
Self-evident was purposefully used here. "All men are created equal" should come to mind. But, let’s admit it, the Declaration and the Constitution aren’t items most of Congress know well. Fewer know the Bible, but that’s another issue.
“Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it, so perhaps, in this example, we can discern that our nations are in fact instinctively like-minded – a product of the common democratic, legal and social traditions in which our governance is rooted to this day. Drawing on these values and traditions, our two countries have, time and again, found ways to come together. And by Jove, Mr. Speaker, when we have found that way to agree, what great change is brought about – not just for the benefit of our peoples, but of all peoples.”
“With the spirit of 1776 in our minds, we can perhaps agree that we do not always agree – at least in the first instance. Indeed, the very principle on which your Congress was founded – no taxation without representation – was at once a fundamental disagreement between us, and at the same time a shared democratic value which you inherited from us.”
You fought to have representation in taxation. Now, 250 years later, you are working to disenfranchise people through gerrymandering and holding territory without equal representation, like in Puerto Rico. Your original goal of a nation is being destroyed by the current government, which does not share the value of democracy that the founding fathers had, and we, the British, now have too. To underscore this, I am saying that you fought a war for democracy, and now the people you fought against are reminding you of it.
“Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it, so perhaps, in this example, we can discern that our nations are in fact instinctively like-minded – a product of the common democratic, legal and social traditions in which our governance is rooted to this day.”
The United States has gone nuts. We started the same. We have a general shared value system, which MAGA is destroying. Your claim to Anglo-Saxon roots — you should really look up who they are and who the English who came to colonize this war, but at night, if you’re not there. If you claim that you are like us, then act like it. Stop with your foolish, anti-intellectual, anti-democratic regime. Go back to what was here and what this nation fought for.
“Drawing on these values and traditions, time and again, our two countries have always found ways to come together. And by Jove, Mr. Speaker, when we have found that way to agree, what great change is brought about – not just for the benefit of our peoples, but of all peoples.”
Charles is speaking here not to MAGA, but to the 2/3 of Americans who didn’t support Trump: the British, when they work with the Americans, make great things happen. He’s really alluding to the fact that the US itself is not unified and therefore cannot agree with the UK. The UK, in his estimation, has not changed, but the US has not aligned with the principles that it claims to hold.
“This, I believe, is the special ingredient in our relationship. As President Trump himself observed during his state visit to Britain last autumn, ‘The bond of kinship and identity between America and the United Kingdom is priceless and eternal. It is irreplaceable and unbreakable.’”
By quoting Trump, he is validating Trump while also undermining him. He is suggesting that Trump said this but completely contradicted it, and every one of his actions. Charles is reminding everyone in this room that Trump cannot be trusted by his words or his actions, and the UK remembers that.
**“This is by no means my first visit to Washington, DC – the capital of this great republic. It is in fact my 20th visit to the United States, and my first as King and head of the Co…
