America is still battling monarchy, and President Donald Trump is the new King George III.
As chaotic and frenzied as Trump’s first term was, his second term has already eclipsed it. And whereas he still remained somewhat bound by Constitutional checks and balances, like Congress having the power of the purse and the federal judiciary invalidating some of his executive actions, none of that seems to be true roughly a month into his second administration.
Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution explicitly states that the legislative branch alone has the “Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general welfare of the United States.” But despite Trump giving centabillionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk the power to have his own employees enter federal agency buildings and access sensitive payment systems, the Republican majorities in Congress have had little to say against the usurping of their powers.
Earlier this month, Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) directly about “ceding Article I powers to the executive branch under Elon Musk,” and called him out on the hypocrisy of railing against “unelected bureaucrats” while giving an unelected billionaire the power to unilaterally decide on how taxpayer money is spent. Johnson bristled at the question, and countered that there was a “gross overreaction in the media to what’s happening,” though he didn’t deny that Musk was making significant decisions over taxpayer money despite never having been elected.
The federal judiciary has been similarly disregarded by the executive branch. Despite multiple Article III judges — including at least one appointed by Trump himself — ruling against him in court, the Trump administration is largely ignoring judges’ rulings. After a judge ruled in favor of plaintiffs suing to block the administration’s freeze on disbursing federal funds already appropriated by Congress, the administration continued to withhold money in spite of the ruling.
US District Judge John McConnell called the funding freeze “likely unconstitutional,” and that it “continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country.” But Vice President JD Vance challenged the authority of the courts to restrain the Trump administration’s actions, saying that the executive branch was exercising “legitimate power.”
“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal,” Vance wrote on X. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Trump and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate have shown a pattern over the last few weeks that they aren’t interested in governing. This is evident in their desire to eliminate the Department of Education (and terminate $900 million in grant funding based solely on Elon Musk’s team deeming that those grants “a waste of taxpayer money”), eradicate the agency responsible for workplace safety, shutter Environmental Protection Agency offices, and dismantle the agency responsible for protecting Americans from financial scams, among others. This agenda combined with Trump’s disregard for Articles I and III of the Constitution suggests that what Trump and the Republicans want to do is rule. The GOP’s embrace of tyranny is arguably the biggest affront to the most fundamental part of what it means to be an American, and should be plainly and frequently called out by both the media and the public.
The Declaration of Independence is still just as relevant today
Nearly 250 years ago, the United States was effectively born once the Declaration of Independence was signed by the framers who would eventually win the Revolutionary War against King George III and establish the Constitution. There are multiple similarities between Trump and King George III when looking at the 27 grievances the framers outlined in their 1776 declaration.
When looking at the declaration’s grievances against George III, a quick Google search shows Trump doing something similar:
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The framers declared that George III “refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.” This is eerily similar to Trump threatening to withhold federal aid from California in the wake of the state’s historic wildfires unless it adopted restrictive voter ID laws — something federal courts have repeatedly maligned as intentional disenfranchisement of large numbers of voters.
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The declaration states that Britain’s monarch “dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.” Meanwhile, Trump has threatened to adjourn both chambers of Congress to make recess appointments if Congress refuses to confirm his appointees.
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George III was accused of endeavouring “to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.” Trump, for his part, has announced plans to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Democratic-run states and threatened elected leaders with prosecution if they interfere with immigration arrests.
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In the declaration, the framers said George III “made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.” And last fall, some of Trump’s biggest supporters in the legal community told the Wall Street Journal that should Trump win, he should appoint Article III judges who would be in favor of crippling the administrative state while strengthening executive power.
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One of the most prescient grievances could be the 10th: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” This is, of course, almost a mirror image of Trump deputizing Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” — which is not yet a Congressionally authorized federal agency — to raid federal agency buildings and unilaterally have henchmen who report directly to him and who have not been subjected to rigorous vetting processes to make sweeping changes. As I wrote previously for Occupy.com, Musk’s foot soldiers have been granted administrator-level access to the US Treasury Department’s payment systems that handle roughly $6 trillion in annual payments. This includes everything from Social Security and Medicare benefits to small business loans, federal income tax returns, government contracts, and grant funding, among others.
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The 13th grievance is also in the same vein as the 10th, with the same parallels to our current predicament: “He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.” Neither Elon Musk nor his employees are elected representatives, and are wholly unaccountable to voters. And yet, they are exercising powers that are arguably far beyond the scope of any Constitutional officer.
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The declaration also condemned George III for “cutting off our trade with all parts of the world,” which can be seen today through Trump imposing sweeping new tariffs on multiple major trade partners like Canada, China, Mexico, and elsewhere. He recently announced a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imported into the United States, which will discourage multiple major trade partners and harm both businesses and customers alike.
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Just as George III was accused of “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences,” Trump has entertained the idea of sending American prisoners to be incarcerated in El Salvador. The American Civil Liberties Union pointed out that this is flatly illegal, as US citizens cannot be deported.
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And of course, George III “excited domestic insurrections among us,” according to the Declaration of Independence. In addition to Trump giving his tacit blessing to the thousands of people who ransacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he issued pardons to virtually all of the approximately 1,500 people charged and/or convicted in connection with the January 6 insurrection. This includes rioters who violently attacked police officers, and even some insurrectionists who were found guilty of seditious conspiracy against the United States and serving decades-long prison sentences.
The framers deemed these grievances to be serious enough to warrant armed conflict against George III. While the United States has been a democracy for more than 200 years and has far more institutional protections against tyranny than the 13 colonies did in 1776, the fact that so many of the framers’ grievances against George III apply to the current regime should give all of us pause. And it’s worth noticing the multiple overlaps between the philosophy embodied by today’s Republican Party and the feudal structure of Great Britain in the 18th century.
Investigative reporter Amy Westervelt made that observation on Bluesky, writing that “for all their talk of ‘freedom’ these folks are feudalists.
“They want the freedom to amass endless wealth, indenture those they see as less than, and keep everyone too dumb and too poor and exhausted and scared to do anything about it,” Westervelt wrote.
Americans of prior centuries have been willing to give up their lives to be free from tyranny. If we hope to stop a would-be 21st century monarchy from entrenching itself and replacing democracy with feudalism, the Americans of today should be willing to ask ourselves what we’re willing to do in order to restore government of, by, and for the people, and reject a tyrant’s attempts to consolidate power.
Carl Gibson is a journalist whose work has been published in CNN, USA TODAY, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, the Louisville Courier-Journal, Barron’s, Business Insider, the Independent, and NPR, among others. Follow him on Bluesky @crgibs.bsky.social.
