Yes, Trump Desires to be a King

Yes, Trump wants to be a King ¶

This post has been long due. It was originally invoked by a conversation I had with someone scoffing at the idea behing the “No Kings Protests”. “How absurd!”, they exclaim; “Trump is no such thing!”. But, like basically all conversations with someone so deeply immersed within the Trump cult, they don’t even have the conceptual apparatus required for me to demonstrate how their conclusion is deeply flawed. So in this post, we will note the general strategies Trump and his minions have implemented to consolidate power, what it means to be “king-like”, and then connect the power consolidation to this “kingliness”.

Table of Contents

• General Consolidation of Power
• Attacking the Federal Reserve
• Department of Defense Expansion
• Unitary Executive Theory
• What does this have to do with Kings?
• More Examples
• Connections to Authoritarian Psychology
• Relationships with Other Kings
• Nepotism , Cronyism, and the Spoils System
• The King-like Nature of his Clemency Grants
• The King-like Nature of his Biggest Supporters and Allies
• Kings Rewrite History and Punish Intellectual Pluralism
• Kings Weaponize Institutions that can Weild Power
• Threatening Enemies with Force: Ressurecting the Insurection Act
• Formally Labeling People as Enemies from Within
• The Trump Propaganda Model Maps onto Authoritarianism
• Conclusions

General Consolidation of Power ¶

Trump’s second term has opened with a bunch of moves that all point in the same direction: make the president the clear boss of the whole executive branch, narrow the space for independent actors, and use the Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity ruling as the legal ceiling. Here’s a structured rundown of the big things so far.

1. The backbone move: bringing back and expanding Schedule F

   • On Day 1 he signed “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce”, which basically reinstates and updates his 2020 Schedule F order. That lets the White House reclassify tens of thousands of “policy-influencing” civil servants into a category that can be fired or replaced far more easily. ( The White House)
   • OPM then followed up with proposed regs in April saying, yep, we’re actually doing this and estimating about 50,000 people could lose normal civil-service protections. That’s huge leverage over the bureaucracy. ( Bell Law Group)
   • Why it matters for presidential power: it turns a chunk of the permanent government into at-will, loyalty-sensitive staff, which means agencies are likelier to do the specific biddings of the White House. This is a consolidation of power.

2. “All agencies answer to me” executive orders

   • On Feb. 18, 2025 the White House put out an EO and fact sheet that says the quiet part loud: “ensure Presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch,” explicitly including agencies that have traditionally operated more independently (think FTC, Fed-adjacent regulators, etc.). ( The White House)
   • A March wave of follow-on guidance/law-firm alerts noticed this was aimed at independent regulatory agencies: changing how they make rules and making their leadership more removable. That collapses some of the New Deal-era distance between the president and economic regulators. ( Baker McKenzie)
   • Big picture: this is a push to erase the informal category of “independent agency” and fold it back under Article II.

3. Using the 2024 Supreme Court immunity ruling as cover

   • In Trump v. United States (July 1, 2024), the Court said presidents have absolute immunity for core Article II acts and presumptive immunity for other official acts. That opinion was still fresh when he came back into office, and commentators this year have said it “explicitly allows” the president to direct DOJ. The 2025 White House is acting like that’s true. ( Supreme Court)
   • Why it matters now: if you expand presidential control over agencies and courts say official actions are largely immune, you’ve thickened the shield around those actions. The president can single-handidly weild control over a law enforcement agency without accountability or checks from legislators and judiciaries.

4. Grabbing the Justice Department / FBI levers

   • On Day 1 he signed “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government” — framed as cleaning up the last administration, but functionally it creates a process to investigate and punish past federal law-enforcement activity. That’s political oversight over the people who investigate politics. ( The White House)
   • Then there were early-term moves to fire or push out prosecutors and FBI officials tied to Jan. 6 cases, at the same time he was pardoning large numbers of Jan. 6 defendants. That’s a classic consolidation move: remove disfavored investigators, reward allies. These were convicted criminals who attacked police officers. ( AP News)
   • Outside legal groups and think-tanks were already warning by Sept. 2025 that DOJ’s normal “presumption of regularity” was getting eroded because of this political direction. That’s a sign the consolidation is being felt inside the system. ( Wikipedia)

5. Personnel + vetting blueprint (the Project 2025 through-line)

   • Even though Project 2025 was a pre-inauguration conservative blueprint, a lot of what we’re seeing — Schedule F revival, loyalty-based staffing, tighter White House control of DOJ — tracks what that document said. The point of that blueprint was exactly what you asked about: consolidate power in the presidency so policy can be driven top-down. ( Brennan Center for Justice)
   • So when you see OPM and the White House moving in tandem on firing protections, you should read that as the blueprint being turned into actual executive power.

6. Elections and who runs them

   • 2025 has also seen Trump’s team poke at federal election administration from the executive side — for example, a March order about tighter voter-ID/“show your papers” style requirements, and later summer talk about curbing mail voting, which watchdogs called a campaign to “undermine the next election.” That’s another area traditionally shielded from raw presidential direction. ( Brennan Center for Justice)
   • That doesn’t just change policy; it moves the locus of control over elections toward the White House.

7. Mass, immediate, policy-by-EO governance

   • On Jan. 20, 2025 he unleashed a very large batch of orders rolling back Biden’s climate, AI, immigration, DEI, and border policies. On its face that’s just normal partisan reversal, but the scale matters — it shows he intends to rule through direct presidential instruments, not long legislative bargaining. ( The Guardian)
   • When you pair “I can fire the people who implement this” (Schedule F) with “all agencies are under presidential supervision,” you get centralized execution. This is not democratic.

8. Pardons and clemency as a loyalty tool

   • Day-of-inauguration pardons for Jan. 6 figures and even the 1,500-plus clemencies reported early on send a message: the president protects his own. That’s not just mercy — it’s a way to de-incentivize internal resistance and keep the movement aligned with the Oval Office. ( AP News)

9. What’s proposed or foreshadowed but not fully done

   • Further expansion of Schedule F reclassifications beyond the initial 50,000 has been hinted at — that would extend the president’s reach deeper into the bureaucracy. ( Federal News Network)
   • Legal commentators in 2025 are already gaming out that, given the immunity decision, the White House could more directly order investigative priorities at DOJ — that’s not always written in the EOs, but it’s the logical next step of what’s already happening. ( Center for American Progress)

That’s the core story: use Day-1 executive orders to yank authority to the White House → make the workforce fireable → use a favorable Supreme Court immunity ruling as armor → reshape DOJ and independent agencies so they’re no longer independent. If you tell me which of those buckets you want to go deepest on (DOJ vs. civil service vs. elections), I can zoom in on the precise orders and legal hooks.

Attacking the Federal Reserve ¶

Here are the main “coming / in-the-pipeline” ways the Trump team and its allies are trying to narrow the Fed’s independence or at least make it more obedient. This results in the president controlling independent institutions that are oriented towards long term planning.

1. Make Fed governors removable — the Lisa Cook test case

   • In September the administration went to the Supreme Court to get permission to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook — something no president has done like this since the Fed was created. The lower court blocked it; the White House is basically saying “the president can remove Fed officials for cause whenever he identifies a cause.” If the Court says yes, it creates a path to threaten or replace future dissenting governors. ( Reuters)
   • Why that matters: once one governor can be pushed out, it’s easier to lean on others and to install short-term loyalists like the Miran nomination in August. That gradually shifts the Board’s center of gravity toward the White House. ( The Washington Post)

2. Fold the Fed into the “no more independent agencies” project

   • Back in February Trump signed “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies,” which said even traditionally independent bodies are subject to presidential “supervision and control.” The Fed wasn’t named, but the logic absolutely points at it. Expect the White House Counsel + Treasury to use that EO to demand more coordination, data, and advance notice from the Fed — especially on bank supervision. ( Federal Register)
   • That EO gives them a hook to say: “we’re not telling you what rate to set, we’re just ensuring accountability.” But once you have to keep the White House looped in, the distance the Fed usually enjoys shrinks.

3. Congressional “Audit the Fed” push (the 2025 version)

   • House conservatives brought back H.R. 24, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2025 on Jan. 3, 2025. Senate allies (Rand Paul, Todd Young) re-upped it in July. That bill doesn’t set interest rates — but it lets GAO look into the parts of monetary policy that are currently walled off. That’s the camel’s nose: once Congress can review deliberations, political pressure gets easier. ( Congress.gov)
   • Trump can’t pass it alone, but the White House can whip for it and frame it as “ending secrecy at the Fed.” That’s a classic way to legitimize more day-to-day interference.

4. Use the “Fair Banking / anti-debanking” order to pull the financial cops closer

   • In August he signed “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans.” That’s about banks dropping people or industries — but it directs federal financial regulators to line up with the White House’s view. The Fed is one of those bank supervisors, so this is a lever to tell the Fed, “in supervision, you follow our line.” That doesn’t change interest rates, but it clips the Fed’s regulatory wing. ( The White House)

5. Personnel + vacancies = quieter control

   • The administration already moved to slot in a loyal, short-term Board member (Miran) while searching for a Powell successor. That’s a signal that every vacancy will be used to build a pro-Trump voting bloc ahead of Powell’s term ending in 2026. A friendlier Board is the simplest way to “limit” the Fed: you don’t change the law, you just change the votes. ( The Washington Post) Incidentally, Miran is one of the few economists who advocate for abolishing Fed independence.

6. The Project 2025 playbook that’s still sitting on the shelf

   Project 2025’s chapter on money calls for things like:

   • forcing the Fed to shrink its balance sheet and stop broad asset purchases,
   • tightening its emergency-lending powers, and
   • in some readings, moving back toward a more rules-based / even gold-flavored setup.
     Those ideas aren’t fully adopted, but they’re the intellectual source for Trump-world arguments that “the Fed went way beyond its statute, so the president can pull it back.” Expect future orders or Treasury guidance to reference exactly this critique. ( UW-Stevens Point)

7. Narrative pressure: “the Fed is blocking growth”

   • You’re already seeing think-tank and finance press in Sept.–Oct. 2025 saying the administration is “meddling with Fed independence.” That isn’t accidental — the White House can weaponize that debate to justify formal limits (“we need transparency because they won’t cut rates”). That’s soft power, but it readies the ground for harder moves. ( Center for American Progress)

So short version: the next steps that are likely; they’re to (1) win the removal case, (2) pack the Board as seats open, (3) make the Fed behave like just another supervised agency on the regulatory side, and (4) get Congress to pierce the confidentiality around monetary policy. All of those chip away at the independence that’s made the Fed hard for presidents to boss around.

Department of Defense Expansion ¶

The Pentagon piece is a big part of the same story: make the military more of a tool for the president’s domestic and political priorities, not just external warfighting. Here’s how it’s getting scoped outward right now.

1. Turning border security into a standing military mission

   • Jan. 22, 2025: Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border and specifically told the department to “take all appropriate action” to help DHS get “complete operational control.” That’s DOD doing what is normally a civilian security job. ( war.gov)
   • Follow-on memo April 11, 2025 (“military mission for sealing the southern border…”) made it even clearer: the president “assigned the Armed Forces” the mission of repelling an invasion and sealing the border — language you usually see in external-defense orders. ( The White House)
   • That’s why you saw 1,500–3,000 active-duty troops plus Strykers sent to the border in March, even though crossings were down — they’re normalizing a large, visible, domestic DOD footprint. ( The Washington Post)
   • And then he designated a 60-foot-wide strip along parts of the border as a “military installation,” which experts read as a way to bend around the Posse Comitatus limits on using troops for law enforcement. That’s scope expansion in legal form. ( Brennan Center for Justice)

2. Readying the military for domestic deployments (Insurrection Act lane)

   • Through 2025 he’s been threatening or preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act when states/cities resist federal policy — Chicago is the current test case — and legal analysts are saying, yes, that’s the law he’d use to put troops in U.S. streets. That’s a domestic-use expansion, not a foreign-policy one. ( WBEZ)
   • Think of it as building a pipeline: border deployment → permanent support to law enforcement → Insurrection Act if locals say no.

3. Symbolic but telling: “Department of War”

   • In September he signed an EO letting the Pentagon use the old name “Department of War” as a secondary title; Hegseth’s door plaque already says “Secretary of War.” He pitched it as “an attitude” shift. Symbolic, yes, but it’s also a way to justify more offensive, president-directed missions — including at home. ( The Guardian)
   • WSJ and PBS both noted it’s part of a bigger cultural/structural change Hegseth is running — stripping DEI, tightening who can serve — so that the force is more ideologically aligned and, therefore, more usable. ( Wall Street Journal)

4. Purging and loyalizing the uniformed/nat-sec chain

   • February: he fired Joint Chiefs chair CQ Brown and started removing senior officers he thought were disloyal or too “woke.” That’s about getting a military leadership that won’t balk at unusual missions (border, cities, politically sensitive ops). ( Tasnim News)
   • April: he fired several national-security staffers after being handed a “disloyalty list.” Same goal: a chain of command that will execute atypical domestic orders. ( RNZ)

5. Budget and priority rewire

   • Hegseth ordered an 8% cut in other Pentagon areas to free money for border security and homeland-missile defense — things Congress didn’t frame as core DOD missions. That’s literally moving DOD money toward the president’s political priorities. ( Politico)
   • The 2025 National Defense Strategy draft says out loud that it will “prioritize defense of the U.S. homeland, including America’s skies and borders.” That’s the doctrinal wrapper for using DOD at home. ( war.gov)

6. Executive orders that widen deployment authority

   • Legal trackers noticed a 2025 EO that gives the SecDef more authority to deploy troops for border and “other national security measures.” That shortens the chain between the White House wanting troops somewhere and troops actually going. ( Tully Rinckey PLLC)
   • Defense One pointed out in August that what was supposed to be temporary military help to law enforcement is being made a core mission — which is exactly what “expanding scope” looks like in practice. ( Defense One)

If you connect the dots: he’s making DOD more available for domestic, presidentially defined problems (border, unruly cities, migration surges) while installing people who won’t resist and rebranding the department so that looks normal.

Unitary Executive Theory ¶

The Unitary Executive Theory (UET) says the Constitution puts all federal executive power in the president alone, so the president must be able to direct, supervise, and remove anyone who exercises executive authority. The legal hooks are Article II’s Vesting Clause (“the executive Power… in a President”) and the Take Care Clause (“take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”). In practice, UET is the intellectual backbone for centralizing agencies under White House control—especially on hiring/firing (removal power), directing rulemaking, and overruling “independent” officials. ( Wikipedia)

• Core claim: only one boss in the executive branch. If an official wields executive power, the president must be able to command or remove them. That definition is standard among proponents (e.g., Calabresi & Yoo). ( University of Chicago Law Review)
• Founding-era support often cited: Hamilton’s Federalist No. 70—an “energetic” executive requires unity for decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch. ( Avalon Project)

Scholars usually distinguish “ thin” UET (presidential control of personnel/supervision) from “ thick” UET (extends to things like dismissing heads of “independent” agencies and aggressive uses of signing statements or OLC opinions). ( University of Chicago Law Review)

U.S. Supreme Court doctrine has zig-zagged, but the recent trend favors stronger presidential control:

• Myers v. United States (1926) — broad presidential removal power over executive officers. (Baseline for UET.)
• Humphrey’s Executor (1935) — carve-out: Congress can give for-cause protection to commissioners of certain independent agencies. (Limit on UET.)
• Morrison v. Olson (1988) — upheld limits on removal of the independent counsel; Justice Scalia’s famous dissent laid out the modern UET case. (UET lost the battle, but won the argument’s future.) ( Justia Law)
• Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (2010) — struck double-layer for-cause protections; too much insulation from the president. (UET win.) ( {{meta.siteName}})
• Seila Law v. CFPB (2020) — single-director agency can’t be shielded by for-cause removal; strengthened the idea that the president must control executive officers. (Major UET win.) ( Supreme Court)

Each time the Court cuts back removal protections or “independence,” it shifts power toward the presidency—exactly the mechanism you’ve been tracking. ( Free Enterprise Fund) This is how UET justifies broader power consolidation:

1. Personnel = policy. If presidents can remove officials at will (or credibly threaten to), agencies tend to align with White House priorities. This is the core functional lever of consolidation. (Myers / Seila trajectory.) ( Supreme Court)
2. “No truly independent agencies.” Strong UET says the FTC, Fed-adjacent regulators, etc., must ultimately be under presidential supervision, narrowing the New Deal–era “independent” model (the legal fights target Humphrey’s Executor). ( Reuters)
3. Centralized rulemaking control. If the president can direct how agencies interpret statutes (and recent cases reduce deference to agencies), the White House gains coordinating supremacy over the administrative state. ( Reuters)
4. Legal shield for assertive action. A stronger Article II reading pairs with recent doctrines (e.g., the Court’s shift on agency power, and debates after Seila Law) to argue that presidential directives are the constitutionally preferred way to execute the laws. ( Supreme Court)
5. Blueprints & politics. Conservative legal circles (Federalist Society, some Heritage/Project-style plans) explicitly invoke UET to argue for top-down control of personnel and policy—turning theory into staffing and EOs. ( Wikipedia)

Critics argue Congress may create tenure protections to ensure expertise and law-bound administration, not presidential politics (their touchstones are Humphrey’s Executor and Morrison). ( Justia Law) If “unitary” becomes “unbounded,” independent law enforcement and financial regulation can be bent to presidential interests—exactly the consolidation critics worry about. (Current debates flag this risk directly.) ( Reuters) This creates an authoritarian drift.

UET supplies the constitutional theory for policies like mass reclassification of civil servants, forcing “independent” boards to heel, and using EOs to set agency lines. The case law trend (Free Enterprise Fund, Seila Law) clears away legal barriers to presidential removal/supervision, which operationalizes that theory. ( {{meta.siteName}})

What does this have to do with Kings? ¶

I want to tie this into the broader tendency of this current administration to consolidate power across all three branches. When the “No Kings” rally happened, there were some trump supporters who tried to claim he is not a king, and generally pushed back with typical red scare propaganda. But if we consider deeply what a “King” is, I think its fairly straight forward Trump wants to be some sort of authoritarian. This should not be surprising either; the majority of Trumps base are evangelical fundamentalists who think that he was literally annointed by god, and is here to carry out gods will. That is in essence, justification for monarchic behavior. There are also broad swaths within his ideological sphere who hold to some form of neo-monarchic ideology, like Curtis Yarvin, who provide “intellectual” support for such power consolidations. Combine this with the unfortunate consequences of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, many tech billionaires literally gave Trump money for special favors like eliminating legal cases. The general trend of the administration is deregulatory, so not absolutely monarchic in the sense of kings having absolute control, but analagous to “doing favors” for barons and nobleman, in order to sustain the kings power. But this generally fits “king” behavior. And not to mention the loyalty tests they want to enforce, cant think of anything kingly than actively suppressing any form of dissent.

If we stitch the pieces together, the pattern is pretty clear: a legal theory (unitary executive), a governing method (personnel control + EOs), and a social-financial ecosystem (religious legitimation + billionaire capital) working in tandem to centralize power—often in ways that rhyme with monarchic rule, even if it isn’t literally absolute monarchy.

1. Executive: build a single, obedient chain of command

   • Make the president the sole interpreter and supervisor. The Feb. 18, 2025 order explicitly declares presidential “ supervision and control of the entire executive branch,” with the President/AG providing authoritative legal interpretations that other officials may not contradict. That’s textbook unitary-executive implementation. ( White House)
   • Strip civil-service protections so personnel = policy. The Jan. 20, 2025 order reinstates and updates Schedule F, enabling mass reclassification and easier removal of “policy-influencing” career staff—shifting the bureaucracy from rules-neutral to loyalty-sensitive. ( White House)
   • Impose loyalty screens. Reporting and litigation in 2025 detail “loyalty” questions/litmus tests for applicants—unions are suing to stop them. That’s how you police dissent inside the state. ( Government Executive)
   • Collapse the “independent agency” idea. The same Feb. 18 move is being applied to the SEC/FTC/FCC, etc., to route budgets, rules, and legal positions through the White House. Even friendly law-firm memos call it a major power grab; press summaries flag it as testing Humphrey’s Executor-era limits. ( Reuters)

2. Judicial: a shield for aggressive presidential action

   • 2024 immunity ruling (Trump v. United States) gives absolute immunity for core Article II acts and presumptive immunity for other official acts. In practice, that’s a thicker armor around bold directives and personnel purges. (Justice Sotomayor’s dissent warned it risks making a president “a king above the law.”) ( Supreme Court)
   • Pair that with recent unitary-leaning precedents like Seila Law (limiting removal protections for single-director agencies), and you get a jurisprudence that prefers presidential control over “independence.” ( University of Chicago Law Review)

3. Legislative & money power: fuel and air cover

   • Citizens United’s legacy is a campaign system where mega-donors and “dark money” can heavily shape agendas. 2024/25 analyses show unprecedented big-money influence; headline donors (e.g., Musk’s >$70M to a pro-Trump super PAC) illustrate the ecosystem—even without alleging quid-pro-quo. Think barons financing the realm. ( Brennan Center for Justice)
   • That money then backs the policy blueprints (e.g., Heritage’s Project 2025) that explicitly operationalize unitary-style staffing and control. ( Heritage Foundation)

4. Culture & ideology: a monarchic frame without the crown

   • Religious legitimation. A durable bloc of white evangelicals sees Trump as fitting within God’s plan; polls varied by year (e.g., ~49% in 2020 said “chosen by God,” while in 2025 Pew finds sizable but more nuanced theistic explanations for his election). Either way, the anointed-ruler trope provides a moral warrant for extraordinary executive deference. ( Big Think)
   • Neo-monarchist / reactionary “intel.” Writers like Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug) openly argue for post-democratic executive concentration and have had visible influence in the new right’s circles—giving an ideological scaffold for treating checks and balances as bugs, not features. ( The New Yorker)

5. Beyond the West Wing: reach into quasi-independent zones

   • The Fed: legal and personnel gambits aim to narrow independence (e.g., pushing removal theories, tighter supervision hooks)—not abolish the Fed, but housebreak it. ( Reuters)
   • DOD/domestic use: emergency proclamations and doctrine tweaks normalize military roles in domestic arenas (border, D.C. public order), expanding the executive’s direct toolkit at home. ( White House)

A king doesn’t just command; he dispenses favor, punishes disloyalty, and collapses intermediaries. What we’re seeing:

• Central command over interpretation and administration (EO 2/18). ( White House)
• Patronage & protection logic enabled by money politics and personnel control (Citizens United world + Schedule F world). ( Brennan Center for Justice)
• Doctrinal cover from courts (immunity + unitary-leaning cases). ( Supreme Court)
• Ritualized loyalty (litmus tests) and public spectacle vs. dissent (the “No Kings” mobilizations as mass rejection of that model). ( Government Executive)

Put differently, the administration’s means (orders, hiring/firing, supervision memos), legal shield (immunity + unitary cases), resources (mega-donor politics), and myths (anointed leadership; neo-monarchic “CEO-state” theory) all mutually reinforce a presidency that behaves more like a centralized court than a coordinator of independent agencies.

More Examples ¶

Let’s just highlight a few.

1. Crypto as a parallel fundraising (and loyalty) channel

   • Trump’s campaign formally opened crypto donations via Coinbase Commerce in May 2024 (BTC, ETH, SOL, DOGE, SHIB, USDC, etc.). That creates a semi-separate pipeline of money + data from a highly online base and crypto-industry donors, and it signaled a broader political courtship of crypto interests. ( donaldjtrump.com)
   • Why it matters for consolidation: it (1) diversifies fundraising beyond the traditional party/RNC pipes, (2) deepens a patronage loop with an industry seeking deregulation, and (3) fosters a branded, leader-centric money stream (campaign NFTs/memecoins orbit) that’s culturally tied to Trump rather than to the party. (Note many Trump-themed tokens exist; some are unofficial or scammy, which watchdogs flagged once the crypto push began.) ( The Block)

Crypto fundraising tightens the link between leader-brand and benefactor industries seeking specific regulatory outcomes—analogous to the “barons” logic we identified earlier. Deregulatory moves then look like returns on loyalty, reinforcing the court-style ecosystem. ( AP News)

2. Texas redistricting: “order” vs. pressure

   • A president can’t legally order a state to redraw its congressional map. Redistricting is a state function (subject to courts/Congress).
   • What did happen: Reporting through summer–fall 2025 describes a White House pressure campaign on GOP-run states to mid-decade redraw maps to lock in more House seats before 2026. Analyses track Texas as a flagship case— mid-decade redraw advancing, amid opaque state-level processes and litigation, with national GOP/Trump-world urging and coordination. That’s political direction, not a formal command. ( Democracy Docket)
   • How it consolidates power: by (1) engineering the playing field for the branch that checks the president; (2) normalizing mid-cycle map changes absent court orders; and (3) using federal bully pulpit + party machinery to spur state action that advantages the presidency’s coalition. Progressive and fact-check outlets note the novelty and hardball; they also stress there’s no legal authority for the president to compel it—only pressure. ( Center for American Progress)

Aggressive, leader-driven redistricting pressure uses extra-legal influence to reshape the legislative branch’s composition, complementing the executive-branch consolidation cataloged earlier (Schedule F revival, “supervision and control” EOs, DOJ leverage) and the judicial shield created by the 2024 immunity ruling. Put together, it’s a three-branch strategy: centralize execution, friendly-fire the courts for cover, and bend the House map upstream.

3. Press access as court-style gatekeeping

   • Targeted exclusion, then a court fight. On Feb 11, 2025 the White House barred the Associated Press from Oval Office/Air Force One pool access over an editorial dispute (“Gulf of Mexico” vs “Gulf of America”). A federal judge ordered AP’s access restored on Apr 8, 2025 on First Amendment grounds (the government can’t punish a newsroom for viewpoint). ( The Associated Press)
   • Structural restrictions on proximity. On Oct 31, 2025 the White House closed “Upper Press” (the press secretary’s corridor) to drop-in reporter access, requiring appointments—an unprecedented narrowing of day-to-day contact the press corps called a blow to transparency. ( Reuters)
   • Pattern, not a one-off. Trump’s team excluded major outlets from briefings in 2017, and in Feb 2025 the WHCA even walked away from coordinating the press pool amid fights over access—both moves consistent with choosing one’s chroniclers. ( The Guardian)
     Why it’s “king-like”: a court chooses courtiers; a king chooses courtiers. Selective access (and the threat of exclusion) disciplines coverage without formal censorship.

4. Book bans as a social-censorship infrastructure

   • Scale in 2024–25: PEN America tallies 6,870 school-book bans across 23 states/87 districts (Jul 2024–Jun 2025), concentrated in Florida (2,304), Texas (1,781), and Tennessee (1,622); many target LGBTQ+ or race-related titles. ( PEN America)
   • Federal stance this year: On Jan 24, 2025 the U.S. Department of Education ended the prior administration’s investigations into book-ban civil-rights complaints—framing the whole effort as a “ hoax.” That’s not a federal ban, but it withdraws a key guardrail against local bans. ( U.S. Department of Education)
   • Movement actors: National groups (e.g., Moms for Liberty) continue organizing school-board pressure campaigns that feed these removals. ( FIRE)
     Why it’s “king-like”: monarchs don’t hand-stamp every ban; they enable loyalists to police culture. Washington’s posture plus aligned state networks produces the same effect: narrowing the Overton window of what can be read and taught.

This is clearly loyalty-filtered bureaucracy + orders asserting presidential “supervision and control” over agencies. (Your “unitary executive” plank.) The 2024 immunity ruling thickens legal armor around aggressive executive acts, reducing risk when disciplining the press or green-lighting culture-war priorities. ( AP News) Put simply: curate the witnesses, narrow the books, staff for obedience, and wear a thicker legal shield. That’s not a literal crown, but it’s recognizably monarchical behavior in a modern key.

5. Admiration for—or deliberate partnership with—authoritarians

   It signals both the leader’s values (who they think should wield power and how) and their methods (personal loyalty over institutions). With Trump, it isn’t hypothetical; there’s a paper trail.

   • Orbán (Hungary) — Trump hosted Viktor Orbán at the White House on Nov 7, 2025 and repeatedly praised him as a “great”/“fantastic” leader while highlighting his hard-line approach at home. That’s open validation of an illiberal model the EU itself calls “backsliding.” ( ABC News)

   • Erdoğan (Turkey) — In March–April 2025, Trump publicly lauded Erdoğan as “very smart” and a “good leader,” even joking about “rigged elections” in his presence—exactly when Turkey’s opposition was facing crackdowns. Again: esteem for a ruler famous for muzzling critics. ( TRT World)

   • Putin (Russia) — He has a long record of praise and indulgence. Two particularly revealing moments:
     • the 2024 rally line that he’d “encourage” Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that don’t hit spending targets (a direct undercut of collective defense), and
     • repeated public compliments about Putin being “smart.”
     Both drew alarm from NATO leadership. ( ABC News)

   • Xi (China) — Even while calling China a rival, Trump has repeatedly praised Xi Jinping as “brilliant” and “top-of-the-line smart,” sometimes underscoring the “iron fist” with which Xi governs 1.4B people. That’s admiration for centralized, personalist control. ( Business Insider)

   • Kim Jong Un (North Korea) — The “ we fell in love” era was not a slip; it was a style—fetishizing personal chemistry with a hereditary dictator as a governing tool. ( AP News)

   1. Values signal → governing template: Consistent praise for strongmen normalizes personal rule and “order” via coercion as the benchmark of “good leadership.” That’s ideologically aligned with a unitary, leader-centric state at home (the same logic behind loyalty tests and Schedule F–style purges you noted earlier).

   2. Policy alignment → institutional erosion: When a U.S. president talks about letting Russia punish NATO members, it weakens the rules-based, institutional side of foreign policy and elevates leader-to-leader bargaining—a hallmark of personalist regimes. ( ABC News)

   3. Court politics → patronage: Praising and platforming figures like Orbán/Erdoğan—while courting industries (crypto, certain tech donors) that want deregulatory favors—recreates a court + barons model: loyalty up, favors down. It’s monarchic behavior, even without a literal crown.

   4. Domestic echo → information control: The same mindset shows up internally: curating press access and tolerating/encouraging book bans by aligned actors are soft tools for shaping the realm’s narrative—again, more court than republic. (We already traced those moves in your earlier notes.)

Democratic leaders sometimes sit with unsavory counterparts. What’s different here is the pattern of admiration + indulgent policy posture, especially toward Putin/Orbán/Erdoğan/Xi, which harmonizes with domestic power-centralization. That’s why your “king” analogy lands: personal loyalty, disdain for mediating institutions, and selective patronage are doing the work that crowns used to do.

Connections to Authoritarian Psychology ¶

Theodor Adorno was a Philosopher who fled Nazi Germany and came to the United States. Among other scholars who fled, they were tasked with identifying the drivers of Fascism/Nazism. Adorno and his collaborators coined the term the “Authoritarian Personality”, mapping personality traits to authoritarianism, which were indicative of an individual falling prey to a fascist movement.

Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950) argued that some people develop a stable cluster of traits that predispose them to support strong, punitive leaders and hierarchical orders. They measured it with the famous F-scale (F for “fascism”), which grouped nine tendencies: conventionalism; authoritarian submission; authoritarian aggression; anti-intraception (hostility to introspection/ambiguity); superstition & stereotypy; power & “toughness”; destructiveness & cynicism; projectivity (attributing one’s own hostile impulses to enemies); and exaggerated concerns with sex. ( Wikipedia) Two big updates you’ll see in modern research:

• Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) condenses the syndrome to submission to authority, aggression sanctioned by authority, and conventionalism (Altemeyer). ( Wikipedia)
• Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) describes the leader/elite side—a preference for group hierarchies and “who/whom” politics. Together, RWA (followers) + SDO (dominators) model authoritarians in the wild. ( Wikipedia)

There are real method critiques of Adorno’s original—e.g., acquiescence bias in the F-scale—but the broad pattern he identified remains influential and was refined by RWA/SDO. ( Wikipedia) Here is how the syndrome maps onto Trump’s behavior and governance:

1. Authoritarian submission & “I alone can fix it” leadership: RWA’s “submission to a singular authority” is mirrored in Trump’s governing style and rhetoric—most famously the “I alone can fix it” theme of his 2016 convention speech—while requiring personal loyalty from key officials (e.g., Comey’s testimony that Trump said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty”). These are classic moves to center all initiative in the leader. ( TIME)
2. Authoritarian aggression toward out-groups: Adorno emphasized punitive hostility aimed at those cast as threats. Policy examples include the 2017 entry ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries (EO 13769/13780) and broader “law-and-order” crackdowns framed around immigrants and protesters—aggression explicitly justified as defending the polity. ( Trump White House Archives)
3. Conventionalism + moral traditionalism: RWA highlights deference to “proper” conventions. Trump’s appeals to restoring order, traditional nationalism, and punitive justice locate virtue in conformity to established norms, then mark dissenters/minorities as dangerous deviants—textbook conventionalism in the Adorno/Altemeyer sense. ( TIME)
4. Power & “toughness”: Adorno noted a fixation on force, toughness, domination. Beyond the rhetoric, you see it in repeated praise of “strong” rulers and valorization of hard power—including publicly admiring Putin as “smart” and even suggesting Russia should punish NATO “delinquents,” which prizes raw coercive leverage over institutional restraint. ( PBS)
5. Projectivity (attributing one’s own will to enemies): The habit of imputing sinister plots to opponents—e.g., framing elections and institutions as “rigged” while personally pressing Georgia officials to “ find 11,780 votes”—is a tight fit with Adorno’s projectivity (projected hostility that justifies counter-aggression). ( The Washington Post)
6. Destructiveness & cynicism toward mediating institutions: Calling the press the “enemy of the people,” threatening access, and turning conflict with newsrooms into a governing style channels Adorno’s cynicism toward institutions that check personal rule; it cultivates contempt so loyalists accept their marginalization. ( Committee to Protect Journalists)
7. RWA + SDO as a two-part engine: Adorno studied the follower-side syndrome; modern work clarifies the leader–follower duet. Trump’s persona often matches SDO’s dominator profile (hierarchy-seeking, winner-take-all, “toughness”), while a chunk of his base exhibits RWA (submission to the anointed leader, aggression at his cue, conventionalism). That pairing reliably produces court-style politics: hierarchical deference up, sanctioned aggression down. ( Wikipedia)

Adorno’s constellation—submission to a singular leader, punitive out-group aggression, fetishizing toughness, disdain for ambiguity, and hostility to independent institutions— maps closely onto Trump’s political method. The 1950s vocabulary needed refinement, but the syndrome is visible: personalize authority, delegitimize arbiters (press, elections bureaucracy), pick enemies, reward loyalists, and cast it all as necessary for “order.” In that sense, your “kingly” frame lines up with what Adorno was trying to name.

Relationships with Other Kings ¶

I never fully realized the extent of his relationships with the Saudi royal family. This became very apparent in the White House meeting with the Saudi prince, where the reporter bravely asked about his murder of an American journalist. Trump obviously attempted to discredit this journalist and defend the theocrat/monarchist. Contrasted with his interview with Zelensky; this is supposed to be what America stands with, western liberal democracies. The disdain in this meeting was unbelievable. But that sort of thing is king like; literally allying with a monarchy while being an asshole and undermining someone who was democratically elected.

When Trump is dealing with monarchs or strongmen, he defaults to personal loyalty + transactional “deals”; when he’s with elected leaders who press liberal-democratic claims, he often shows public disdain. That’s very “court politics”—a king recognizes other kings and treats republicans like petitioners.

1. On the Saudi side

   • Khashoggi context. Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist living in the U.S., murdered in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018; the U.S. intelligence community later assessed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation. Trump publicly disputed/played down that assessment and said the U.S. would remain a “steadfast partner” of Saudi Arabia. ( Director of National Intelligence)
   • 2025 White House embrace. On Nov. 18, 2025, Trump hosted MBS at the White House, touted a “$1 trillion” Saudi investment slate, and defended the crown prince when a reporter pressed about Khashoggi’s murder—exactly the deferential, face-saving posture you described. ( The White House)
   • Broader entanglement. The Saudi PIF’s $2B investment in Jared Kushner’s fund and the LIV Golf partnership at Trump-owned courses reinforce a court-and-barons vibe: private wealth and royal favor interweave with presidential politics. (Congressional inquiries flagged the optics in 2022; Trump venues kept hosting LIV through 2025.) ( Senate Finance Committee)

2. The Zelensky contrast

   • Oval Office clash. On Feb. 28, 2025, during Zelensky’s visit, Trump berated the Ukrainian president as “disrespectful”; Zelensky left without the minerals/aid deal the White House sought. That meeting read as pointed disdain toward a democratically elected leader resisting a personal-deal frame. ( AP News)
   • NATO signal. In 2024, Trump even said he’d “encourage” Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to allies that “don’t pay”—undercutting the rules-based alliance model that anchors liberal democracies. ( ABC News)

Why this is “king-like” (not just “realpolitik”)

1. Personal rule over institutions. Favoring a prince (and shielding him from institutional findings) while browbeating an elected counterpart expresses a value: leaders are legitimate because they wield power, not because they’re constrained by law or parliaments. That mirrors the unitary executive impulse at home—centralize authority in the person of the ruler. ( The White House)
2. Court patronage logic. Saudi wealth (state and royal) + family/business ties + marquee White House hospitality look like mutual patronage. In monarchies, favor flows through the court; in Trump’s statecraft, favors (investments, events, weapons packages) and public absolution flow through personal relationships. ( The White House)
3. Punish republicans, flatter sovereigns. Scolding Zelensky and praising/defending MBS (or Putin/Orbán in other contexts) is ideological signaling: order and strength come from singular rulers—a king among kings—while argumentative democrats are treated as nuisances. ( AP News)

The Saudi/MBS episode and the Zelensky episode are clean, recent contrasts that make the case vivid: personal loyalty > institutional fidelity, patronage > policy process, court diplomacy > alliance norms.

Nepotism , Cronyism, and the Spoils System ¶

Nepotism is advancing family members (or their interests) in public business. Cronyism is awarding public roles, access, or advantage to loyalists and financiers. The spoils system is turning the bureaucracy into patronage—jobs, protections, and resources flow to the loyal; critics and neutrals are pushed out. If you cannot see these as central aspects of his governance style, you have your head up your ass.

1. Nepotism (favoring family)

   • Putting family in the West Wing (1st term): Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were made senior advisers after DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel said the federal anti-nepotism law doesn’t apply to White House staff—an explicit legal workaround to seat family near the throne. ( Department of Justice)
   • Family power by other means (2nd term): Jared Kushner re-emerged as a central foreign-policy player with no formal role, while maintaining Gulf-funded business ties—raising obvious conflict-of-interest questions. (Saudi Arabia’s PIF committed $2B to his fund; a Senate inquiry later detailed the fees it paid.) This is dynastic politics by proxy. ( The Washington Post)

2. Cronyism (favoring friends/donors/allies)

   • Ambassadorships for mega-donors: In 2025, billionaire GOP donor Warren Stephens was confirmed as ambassador to the UK—fitting a broader Trump pattern of donor-heavy postings and a long-term tilt away from career diplomats. ( Reuters)
   • Installing partisan loyalists in key institutions: Louis DeJoy, a major Trump donor, became Postmaster General in 2020 and remains a touchstone example of a politically aligned outsider running a crucial public service. ( The Washington Post)
   • Blending public office with private venues & patrons: Watchdogs have tracked persistent official/political events at Trump properties (and, in 2025, a donor-funded White House ballroom project), creating a court-economy where proximity to the sovereign is monetized. ( CREW)

3. The spoils system (reward loyalists, purge or punish the rest)

   • Reviving “Schedule F” (Day 1, 2025): Trump reinstated and expanded the 2020 order letting the White House reclassify tens of thousands of “policy-influencing” civil servants into easily fireable slots—explicitly shifting a neutral civil service toward political loyalty. OPM followed with implementation guidance and later briefed agencies that Article II lets the president remove large numbers of career staff. That’s textbook spoils logic. ( The White House)
   • Formalizing loyalty screens: Unions sued over a “loyalty” essay question embedded in federal job applications under a new Merit Hiring plan—again, hiring for allegiance, not merit. ( Federal News Network)
   • Stripping counterweights: In 2025 Trump signed an order curtailing union rights for hundreds of thousands of federal workers; the House later passed a bipartisan bill to reverse it. Weakening unions makes it easier to purge and reward at will. ( AP News)

Monarchs centralize power through family (nepotism), court favorites (cronyism), and patronage/discipline of the bureaucracy (spoils). Across both terms, Trump’s governance repeatedly elevates kin and their ventures into public business (or parallel influence channels), rewards patrons and loyalists with high office and privileged access, and retools the civil service so jobs and protections depend on personal loyalty. Put together, that’s a modern court: favors flow down from the person of the ruler, loyalty flows up, and neutral institutions are sidelined.

The King-like Nature of his Clemency Grants ¶

I do not like the concept of a presidential pardon. But there are distinctions between the types of people being pardoned, and for what reasons (in Trumps case, loyalty). Here’s what I found, boiled into themes with concrete examples and receipts. The through-line is that clemency is being used as a sovereign favor—to reward loyalists, erase narratives that harm the leader, and short-circuit neutral legal processes. Here is what’s been granted

• Day-1 blanket Jan. 6 clemency. On Jan 20, 2025, Trump issued a proclamation pardoning roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants (with 14 high-profile commutations), framing prosecutions as a “grave national injustice.” ( The White House)
• Ongoing, case-by-case pardons/commutations throughout 2025 documented on DOJ’s clemency log (the official list), including white-collar, crypto, culture-war, celebrity, and political cases. ( Department of Justice)
• Symbolic “federal” pardons of 2020 election allies (e.g., Giuliani, “fake electors”) in Nov. 2025—legally toothless where charges are state cases, but ideologically potent. ( NBC Boston)

The big buckets (with emblematic examples)

1. Insurrection + election-subversion allies

• Blanket Jan. 6 clemency; commutations/pardons touching Proud Boys/Oath Keepers leadership. ( The White House)
• November slate of 77 “fake electors”/2020 plot figures—largely symbolic because most face state exposure. ( NBC Boston)
• Attempted “pardon” of Tina Peters (a state convict) underscores the theatrical, king-like assertion of power beyond its legal limit. ( Reuters)

2. White-collar / market & crypto cases

• Trevor Milton (Nikola founder) full pardon; erases fraud verdict and massive restitution exposure. ( Financial Times)
• Devon Archer (Hunter Biden associate) full pardon—clears a large restitution order and serves a political narrative. ( AP News)
• BitMEX founders + the corporation (HDR Global Trading Ltd.)—a rare corporate pardon alongside BSA violations. (Seen on DOJ’s list.) ( Department of Justice)

3. Celebrity/culture-politics clemency

• Ross Ulbricht (Silk Road) pardoned Day 2. ( Department of Justice)
• Todd & Julie Chrisley (bank/tax fraud) pardoned in May. ( AP News)
• NBA YoungBoy (federal gun case) pardoned in the same late-May spree. ( AP News)

4. Convicted politicians & movement figures

• Michele Fiore (Nevada): pardoned after a wire-fraud conviction tied to a fallen-officer fund; a loyal ally. ( The Washington Post)
• Brian Kelsey (ex-TN senator) campaign-finance crimes. ( Department of Justice)
• FACE Act/clinic-blockade activists: a January 23 batch wiped out federal abortion-clinic obstruction convictions. ( Department of Justice)

5. Drug-trade figures—despite “tough on drugs” rhetoric

• Larry Hoover (Gangster Disciples founder): federal sentence commuted. ( ABC7 Chicago)
• Juan Orlando Hernández (ex-Honduran president) full pardon for a major U.S. drug-trafficking conviction; Honduras promptly sought his arrest on new charges. ( Reuters)
• Round-up reporting notes a run of drug-related clemency that contradicts administration saber-rattling. ( The Washington Post)

There are clear themes and patterns here..

• Loyalty > legality. Jan. 6 participants and 2020 “fake electors” are treated as royal retainers—their offenses re-defined as service to the sovereign rather than crimes against the state. That’s classic court politics: the ruler dispenses mercy to those who fought for him. ( The White House)
• Patronage & signaling. White-collar and crypto clemency (Milton, BitMEX, Archer) dovetails with donor/industry politics and message warfare against opponents. It both rewards allies and rewrites the narrative of who the “real” criminals are. ( Financial Times)
• Personal justice system. The process itself was refashioned: Trump installed Ed Martin (a political loyalist) as Pardon Attorney and “weaponization” czar, moving clemency away from neutral DOJ vetting and toward court-of-the-king access. ( Department of Justice)
• Superseding courts & victims. Multiple grants wiped out massive restitution (e.g., Archer; Milton; others), leaving victims uncompensated—at least $1B, per independent analysis; Hill Democrats peg it higher. That’s the sovereign undoing judicial remedies by fiat. ( ABC News)
• Overreach theatre. Announcing pardons for state crimes (e.g., Tina Peters) performs sovereign power—even when it has no legal effect—which reinforces the aura that the leader stands above ordinary jurisdiction. ( TIME)

Historically, monarchs used clemency to bind followers, punish enemies indirectly, and erase legal defeats. In 2025 the pattern looks similar: mass absolution of one’s foot-soldiers, mercy for courtiers and patrons, public nullification of verdicts/restitution, and even symbolic edicts where the law doesn’t reach. It amounts to a parallel justice system, centered on the person of the president and insulated by the recent Article II immunity doctrine and a re-engineered clemency pipeline. ( The White House)

The King-like Nature of his Biggest Supporters and Allies ¶

If a leader behaves like a king, you’ll often see (a) court intellectuals who argue for monarchy/post-democracy, (b) patrons who are openly skeptical of democratic restraints, and (c) a base that’s unusually okay with an unconstrained ruler. Trump-world checks all three. Many of the people within his radius are high net worth, powerful, individuals who are openly apologetic for monarchic social arrangements. Here are just a few:

1. The court-intellectual lane: Curtis Yarvin (aka “Mencius Moldbug”)

   • Yarvin’s core thesis is explicit: America’s democratic “experiment” should be ended and replaced with an “accountable monarchy”—basically a CEO-style sovereign who runs the state like a firm (“neocameralism”). Mainstream profiles and his own public appearances document this plainly. ( The New Yorker)
   • He’s not just random internet noise; his ideas have circulated inside the new right/tech donor ecosystem often linked to Trump-world. ( TIME)

2. The patron lane: Peter Thiel & the anti-democracy provocation

   • Thiel’s most famous line (2009): “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” That’s his wording, in context, in Cato Unbound. Even if he’s nuanced it at times since, the baseline is open skepticism of democratic constraints. ( Cato Unbound)
   • Reporting over the last few years has shown how Thiel’s network has funded and elevated figures in the Trump orbit (e.g., Vance), helping to mainstream post-democratic/“CEO state” ideas that rhyme with Yarvin’s. ( The Washington Post)

Literal monarchy? Almost no Americans say “make Trump a king.” But the functional king test is whether supporters accept a president who can ignore rival institutions or be given extra power. On that, the splits are striking:

• In PRRI’s 100-days survey (spring 2025), 81% of Republicans chose “Trump is a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness,” while a national majority called him a “dangerous dictator whose power should be limited.” PRRI also found that 20% of Americans agreed we may need a president willing to break some laws; support for letting a president ignore Congress or the Supreme Court was far higher among Christian-nationalism adherents.
• An April 2025 Elon University poll found 40% of Republicans said the president should be able to ignore court rulings he thinks are bad for the country (vs. 33% of Republicans opposed; national opposition 54%). That’s not “crowning” language—but it is comfort with rule above law, i.e., a king-like stance in practice. ( Elon University)
• A Reuters/Ipsos read also found many Republicans would back Trump defying a court order in certain cases (e.g., deportations), which is again a willingness to let the leader overrun institutional checks. ( Reuters)

Yarvin is an ally who wants a sovereign. He literally argues for replacing democracy with a monarchy-like CEO ruler; he’s been platformed and debated for exactly that position. ( Yale Daily News) Thiel is literally a patron who prefers the unconstrained executive. He published skepticism about democracy—and his movement-building—create ideological cover for a “one boss” state. ( Cato Unbound) While most Americans still reject literal kingship, a non-trivial slice of Trump’s coalition endorses giving the president exceptional leeway—even to the point of ignoring courts. That’s the operational version of monarchism. ( Elon University)

Monarchies run on (1) a legitimizing philosophy, (2) rich patrons, and (3) subjects who accept that the sovereign stands over other institutions. In Trump’s case you can point to Yarvin’s post-democracy blueprint, Thiel’s high-dollar, anti-majoritarian provocation, and polling showing elevated tolerance for an unbounded executive. That triangle doesn’t prove every supporter “wants a king,” but it does show how the ecosystem around him normalizes ruler-over-rules politics—i.e., the essence of crown-style power.

Kings Rewrite History and Punish Intellectual Pluralism ¶

In Trump’s first term, he and his minions put forth the 1776 Commission, which was essentially a historical revisionist project designed to provide a “nationalist education”. Putting aside the Fascist nature of something like this (you can do the research yourself on how fascists implement identical projects), revising history itself to glorify yourself is very king like. Recently, Trump renamed federal buildings in his name, and rewrote the history of past presidents in the White House. In addition, he has repeadetly punished universities who have students who disagree with his politics. Unsurprisingly, these were some of the institutions that have also pointed out the absurdity of his revisionist programs.

1. Putting his name on the realm

   • Federal landmarks while in office. In late 2025, the administration and Trump-appointed boards moved to slap his name on major institutions: the U.S. Institute of Peace and even the Kennedy Center (board vote added “Donald J. Trump” to the building itself). Presidential historians called the self-naming wave unprecedented for a sitting president. ( AP News)
   • Warships & agencies. The Navy rolled out a Trump-class battleship program; and the Pentagon was informally rebranded “ Department of War” by executive order (a formal renaming would still need Congress and could cost up to $125M, per CBO). Both concentrate glory and martial symbolism in the person of the ruler. ( Navy)

2. Rewriting the official story

   • “Restoring Truth” directives. White House orders/fact sheets pledged to reset the historical narrative at federal sites and museums—explicitly casting prior accounts as ideological “rewrites” and putting the presidency in the role of chief historian. ( The White House)
   • Presidential Walk of Fame plaques. Trump personally installed partisan plaques beneath portraits of past presidents on a new West Wing walkway—e.g., labeling Biden “sleepy,” Obama “divisive,” and praising Reagan as a fan of young Trump—literal narrative editing by the sovereign. ( AP News)

3. Using the purse to discipline universities & states

   • Universities. In March 2025, the administration abruptly canceled about $400M in grants and contracts to Columbia University; later a settlement (over $220M plus policy concessions) restored funding. Parallel anti-DEI funding threats/attempted cutoffs drew federal court blocks. This is textbook “favor/punish” use of royal coffers. ( Reuters)
   • States & cities. The White House has repeatedly threatened or moved to withhold funds from “sanctuary” jurisdictions and Democratic-led states; several efforts were enjoined by courts (e.g., a judge blocking a $10B freeze and earlier sanctuary cutoffs). Even when halted, the message is clear: tribute flows to the loyal. ( Reuters)

Kings Self-memorialization while ruling. They absorb state prestige into the person (names on buildings/ships; martial rebrand). Kings do this first. ( AP News) Kings then monopolize on the narrative → the court decides what history says (orders to “restore” history; plaques rewriting predecessors). ( The White House) then, Kings implement patronage & punishment via the treasury; they reward allies, discipline dissenters (funding cancellations/conditions for campuses; threats to hostile jurisdictions). Courts have limited pieces of this, but the governing intent—and effect on targets—matches crown politics. ( Reuters)

Kings Weaponize Institutions that can Weild Power ¶

What’s happening now around the Fed is a clean example of using prosecutorial power to bend an ostensibly independent institution to the ruler’s will.

• What’s actually happening

  • DOJ subpoenas the Fed / Powell: In January 2026, the Justice Department served grand-jury subpoenas on the Federal Reserve tied to Powell’s June 2025 testimony and HQ renovation costs; Powell said DOJ also threatened criminal indictments. He called the probe a pretext to pressure faster rate cuts. Bipartisan figures (incl. GOP senators) and major financiers blasted the move as a threat to Fed independence; the White House denies directing it. ( Federal Reserve)
  • Parallel bid to fire a governor: The administration also moved to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook “for cause”; lower courts blocked the removal and the Supreme Court took the case (Trump v. Cook). Even if styled as a misconduct matter, the effect would be to discipline dissent inside the Board. ( PBS)
  • Structural backdrop: Trump’s Feb 18, 2025 executive order asserted presidential “ supervision and control” over all agencies—explicitly collapsing the idea of “independent” bodies. Corporate and law-firm alerts noted it injects the AG/DOJ directly into regulatory interpretation. That policy frame makes a DOJ squeeze on the Fed more plausible. ( The White House)

Formally the probe targets potential false statements/construction overruns. Functionally, it lands as a criminal-pressure lever on the central bank during a live rates debate. Multiple outlets and Powell himself describe it as part of a pressure campaign to force deeper cuts; analysts say the fight may now delay cuts by hardening political resistance. ( opb)

This is a clear example of Sovereign justice over neutral process. Using prosecutors to threaten an independent money authority is the modern echo of a monarch’s star-chamber—law not to adjudicate, but to coerce policy outcomes. ( AP News) Pairing a DOJ probe with an effort to remove a sitting governor undermines the Fed’s staggered-term insulation—i.e., turning a collegial board into at-will courtiers. ( PBS) There are massive themes of this incident that are clearly indicative of King Like behavior:

1. Policy by prosecution: criminal tools are aimed at rate-setting actors (Powell, Fed staff) to change macro policy without legislation. ( Federal Reserve)
2. Personnel as leverage: the Cook-removal fight shows how threat of firing can reshape votes inside the Fed—no statute rewritten, outcome still altered. ( PBS)
3. Chilling effect: even if cases don’t stick, subpoenas + indictment threats warn future officials what happens if they defy the ruler’s line—classic court politics. ( The Washington Post)

Threatening Enemies with Force: Ressurecting the Insurection Act ¶

This is a classic “king move”: threaten to use the army against disfavored provinces. Here’s how the Insurrection Act piece actually looks right now, and why it reads monarchic.

The Insurrection Act is a narrow exception to the Posse Comitatus limits: under 10 U.S.C. §§ 251–253, a president can deploy federal troops domestically to suppress rebellion, enforce federal law, or protect rights when local authorities are “unable or unwilling.” A proclamation to disperse is required. Historically it’s been used sparingly (e.g., LA 1992 after a governor’s request; civil-rights desegregation in the 1950s–60s). ( U.S. Code) Whats happening now?

• Active threats tied to a blue state. Amid protests in Minnesota over federal immigration crackdowns, Trump publicly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act; the Pentagon put 1,500 active-duty soldiers on prepare-to-deploy orders. Local leaders (Gov. Walz, Mayor Frey) objected. ( Reuters)
• Pattern, not a one-off. Civil-liberties and policy groups have been warning since 2025 that the administration is normalizing Insurrection-Act talk to police dissent in jurisdictions that oppose federal policy, especially “blue” ones. ( American Civil Liberties Union)
• This has precedent in his playbook. In 2020, he threatened to use the Act during the George Floyd protests and sent active-duty units toward D.C., even as Lafayette Square was force-cleared—signals that domestic military use is on the table. ( Default)

Why this reads “king-like” instead of normal crisis management:

1. Punishing disfavored provinces. The threats are framed around Democratic-led jurisdictions that resist his agenda— using the specter of troops as political leverage, not just emergency response. That’s ruler-over-provinces logic. ( Reuters)
2. Policy by intimidation. Even without formally invoking the Act, pre-deployment orders chill governors and mayors and pressure them to accept federal priorities (immigration crackdowns, protest control). That’s the modern equivalent of marching the king’s guard to the city gates. ( AP News)
3. Fused with broader consolidation. The same administration has asserted “presidential supervision and control” over agencies and leveraged DOJ pressure on other “independent” actors (e.g., the Fed). Threatening army use domestically completes the triangle: personnel control, prosecutorial pressure, and the credible use of force.

Formally Labeling People as Enemies from Within ¶

NSPM-7 (“Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” Sept 25, 2025) is a clean, recent example of court-style power: redefine dissent as threat, centralize who decides that line, and sic the sovereign’s investigators and tax collectors on the ruler’s critics.

NSPM-7 (in plain English) rebrands dissent as “organized political violence.” It directs FBI JTTFs/NJTTF to investigate and disrupt individuals, nonprofits, donors and employees tied to loosely defined “political intimidation,” explicitly listing things like coordinated harassment, doxing, “civil disorder,” and an “anti-fascist” conspiracy. ( The White House) It tasks Treasury/IRS to “follow the money,” map donor networks, and use financial-crimes tools against groups deemed part of the threat. Law-firm and NGO alerts warned nonprofits and funders about new enforcement risk. ( DLA Piper) On Dec 4, 2025 the AG issued an implementation memo that civil-liberties groups say sweeps in ideology (“anti-American,” “anti-capitalist,” etc.) rather than concrete criminal conduct. ( Arnold & Porter) I think this generally represents monarchic behavior, eerily resembling a religious inquisition. Combine this with Executive Order 14202 (Task force for eradicating Anti-Christian Bias), and you have a precise, targeted witch hunt, targeting blasphemers and heretics. These are the ultimate attacks on free speech. Here is why its king like:

1. Personal rule over neutral law. By expanding the category of “domestic terrorism” to include amorphous political activity—and then aiming prosecutors + tax cops at those networks—the leader effectively claims a Star-Chamber-style power to criminalize opposition. Kings do not ban debate. They call it sedition. ( Arnold & Porter)
2. Court vs. provinces. Treasury/IRS pressure on civil society functions like royal attainder—financially crippling unfavored “houses” (nonprofits, unions, donor circles) without new legislation. ( DLA Piper)
3. Ideological monopoly. Rolling out NSPM-7 days after an EO purporting to designate “Antifa” as a domestic-terror group frames one side of politics as inherently suspect, demonic, and evil, a hallmark of monarchic information control. ( Brennan Center for Justice)

Here is how NSPM-7 is being used:

• AG implementation playbook: DOJ’s directive orders a nationwide intel pull on “antifa and similar organizations” and JTTF target lists—without a parallel surge on right-wing violence, despite recent data proving beyond reasonable doubt that right wing political violence is by far the most problematic. Civil-liberties groups call it an ideologically skewed crackdown. ( The Washington Post)
• Nonprofit & donor risk: Compliance advisories now tell charities to harden grant-vetting, political-activity walls, and KYC on donors because IRS/Treasury may treat support for protest-linked groups as facilitation of “political violence.” ( insidepoliticallaw.com)
• Immediate pushback: ACLU and others argue the memo threatens First Amendment activity (association, advocacy) and will chill protected speech—even if agencies say they’ll respect the Constitution. ( American Civil Liberties Union)

This plugs directly into this “king” model we have been developing. The Trump regime supersedes the law, by expanding definitions so the palace decides what counts as “violence,” then enforces through loyal prosecutors and revenue agents. (Policy by prosecution + finance.) ( Arnold & Porter) They have created a parallel justice system: instead of neutral, case-specific criminal standards, the ruler’s ideological enemies list becomes the organizing principle; funding networks are targeted as if they’re hostile baronies. ( TIME) this is mediated and synchronizes with other crown moves: threats to use the Insurrection Act in blue jurisdictions; DOJ pressure on the Fed; Schedule-F-style loyalty filters—all reinforce a presidency that treats independent actors as subjects. ( The Washington Post) In short, Criminalize the out-group’s ecosystem (people and funders) ( DLA Piper), Centralize designation power (what is “terror” = what the palace says it is) ( Arnold & Porter), and Weaponize finance (Treasury/IRS) to starve adversaries. ( DLA Piper)

The Trump Propaganda Model Maps onto Authoritarianism ¶

Monarchs did not have propaganda techniques (to my knowledge). Propaganda emerged around the same time as modern democracies. Therefore, in this section we are imagining how a monarch would have used propaganda if required. The best analogue is Fascist propaganda, because it seeks totalizing control and subservience of a population. Below is a historically grounded map of the propaganda methods, techniques, and media ecosystem built by Joseph Goebbels (Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) and key collaborators, with emphasis on principles, how media was leveraged, and psychological mechanisms they exploited. We will first identify elements of this ecosystem and then map them onto modern conservative propaganda.

1. The ecosystem Goebbels built: “total” media coordination + cultural control

   1. Central institutional hub: the Propaganda Ministry (RMVP): After 1933, Goebbels’ ministry became the coordinating center for press, radio, film, publishing, arts, music, theatre, and public events, with the explicit remit of shaping the “mental moulding” of the nation. ( Wikipedia) Nazi propaganda wasn’t only “messaging.” It was a full stack: content production (films, radio programming, speeches, exhibitions), content distribution (cinemas, loudspeakers, rallies, press syndication), content policing (licensing, bans, professional exclusion, directives) and audience management (calibrating themes to morale, war news, rumors). Archival holdings reflect how deeply the RMVP penetrated cultural life and media administration. ( National Archives)

   2. “Gleichschaltung” in practice: licensing, coordination, and professional gatekeeping The ministry’s leverage worked through: compulsory coordination of institutions (broadcasting folded into a centralized system under Goebbels’ authority) ( Wikipedia), professional “chambers” (via the Reich Chamber of Culture and its sub-chambers), which controlled who could legally work in cultural/media fields ( Wikipedia), and routine directive systems, especially daily press steering (see below).

   3. Press steering as a daily ritual: the Reich press conference system: One of the most important mechanisms was the daily Reich press conference, which issued detailed guidance about what to report and how to frame it, functioning as a standing instrument of agenda control and framing (with consequences for violations). ( Wikipedia)

   4. Key collaborators and overlapping power centers: The Nazi media state was also polycratic (overlapping authorities, rivalries), but Goebbels sat at the center of coordination. The ecosystem involved, among others: Otto Dietrich (Reich press chief / press apparatus) ( Wikipedia), Hans Fritzsche (radio/press conduit; later tried at Nuremberg) ( Avalon Project), Max Amann (party publishing empire/Eher Verlag; press power) ( Wikipedia), plus film-world partners and institutions that coordinated with the RMVP, including the newsreel system and major studios under supervision ( Wikipedia)

2. Core operating principles: what they were trying to do: Scholars disagree on whether Goebbels had a neat “theory,” but there is wide agreement on recurring operational principles visible in diaries, ministry practice, and wartime analysis.

   1. Unify the voice; eliminate competing interpretive frames: A foundational principle was message centralization: reduce interpretive pluralism by ensuring that major channels echo compatible frames (even if not identical wording). This is visible in the ministry’s coordinating role across media and culture. ( Wikipedia)

   2. “Propaganda + censorship” as one system (not two): Goebbels’ system paired mass persuasion with structural suppression: persuasion to mobilize and normalize and suppression to remove alternatives and punish deviation. This is one reason historians warn against treating Nazi propaganda as “just rhetoric”: it operated inside a coercive state, so “audience choice” was constrained.

   3. Preach to the “partially converted”: David Welch’s synthesis highlights a key finding in propaganda studies: for sustained success, propaganda often works best when it amplifies or organizes existing beliefs, grievances, identities, and hopes—more than when it tries to create them from scratch. ( Google Books)

   4. Build “Volksgemeinschaft” (national community) + leader charisma (“Hitler myth”): A central task was constructing an emotionally resonant national “we,” with Hitler as embodiment of national rebirth—through ritual, spectacle, and repetition across media. (This theme is core to major scholarship on Nazi persuasion and mass politics.) ( Google Books)

   5. Define politics as an existential friend–enemy struggle: Nazi propaganda persistently framed politics as a battle of survival against enemies (Jews, Bolsheviks, “plutocrats,” internal “traitors”), making extreme measures feel necessary and morally licensed. Jeffrey Herf’s work is especially important on how antisemitic and “world conspiracy” narratives saturated wartime propaganda and helped legitimate genocidal policy as “defensive.” ( Google Books)

3. Technique repertoire: the recurring moves Goebbels used (with examples of media forms)

   1. Agenda control, framing, and “interpretation management”: not only to tell people facts, but to dictate what facts mean. They succeeded in this through mechanisms such as: daily press directives (agenda-setting and frame enforcement) ( Wikipedia), strategic emphasis/de-emphasis (spotlighting victories, minimizing defeats; later, reframing defeats as heroic sacrifice), and disciplined vocabulary (“Sprachregelung” / regulated phrasing) ( Arild Hauge). In modern times, this is known as agenda-setting, framing, and priming—implemented through institutional control rather than competitive persuasion.

   2. Simplification + repetition + “cognitive ease”: Nazi messaging pushed simple binaries, repeatable slogans, and high-frequency reiteration across channels. This aligns with what later psychologists describe as familiarity-driven credibility effects (often discussed today as “illusory truth” / familiarity effects), though Goebbels did not need the academic labels to exploit the phenomenon. A classic scholarly early synthesis of “Goebbels’ principles” (from wartime diary analysis) is Leonard W. Doob’s article. ( Csmeyns)

   3. Emotionalization: fear, pride, resentment, hope, humiliation: A great deal of Nazi propaganda is best understood as affective engineering: fear (encirclement, conspiracy, invasion), pride (rebirth, destiny), resentment (Versailles humiliation, scapegoats), belonging (community rituals), and disgust/contempt (dehumanization of outgroups). Work on emotions and Nazi propaganda emphasizes how emotional triggers were systematically targeted, not incidental. ( WSU Researchers Admin)

   4. Scapegoating and dehumanization (especially antisemitic propaganda): This was not just “prejudice”; it was a structured persuasive program: portray the target as omnipotent and subhuman at once, depict violence as preventive self-defense, and normalize exclusion through “common sense” stereotypes. Herf’s The Jewish Enemy is central for understanding wartime antisemitic propaganda as an integrated argument for annihilatory policy. ( Google Books) Bytwerk also analyzes how Nazi rhetoric constructed justificatory pathways toward mass violence. ( Taylor & Francis Online)

   5. “Aestheticized politics”: spectacle, ritual, and mass choreography. The regime used rallies, marches, banners, uniforms, architecture + lighting (cathedral-like staging), music and synchronized crowds, and carefully staged “unity” scenes. This is persuasion through embodied experience: people don’t only “agree,” they feel agreement in a collective ritual. Film scholarship on Nazi cinema emphasizes how entertainment and aesthetic pleasure were used to stabilize identification and belonging, not only to deliver explicit doctrine. ( Quod Libumich)

   6. “Entertainment as persuasion” (especially in cinema): A major misconception is that propaganda equals overt messaging. A large share of Nazi film output was entertainment that carried background assumptions (gender roles, militarism, hierarchy), normalization of “community” ideals, and implicit outgroup narratives. Rentschler’s The Ministry of Illusion is a foundational text for how Nazi cinema worked through pleasure, genre, and “illusions of wholeness,” not just crude didacticism. ( Quod Libumich)

   7. Pseudo-events and staged “reality”: They produced situations designed to be filmed, photographed, and reported: choreographed visits, ceremonies, and “spontaneous” crowds, tightly managed imagery of leaders and unity, and selective “newsworthiness” (what gets seen becomes what feels real). This is an early example of what later theorists call pseudo-events and media logics: events designed for their reproducibility in mass media.

4. Media leverage: what each channel contributed

   1. Radio (intimacy + ubiquity + simultaneity): This was a uniquely powerful tool because it combined in-home presence (private space), leader voice intimacy, and synchronized national listening. The regime aggressively expanded access to cheap radios (the Volksempfänger), explicitly for propaganda reach. ( Wikipedia) This allowed for repeated exposure (familiarity), perceived “directness” (less mediation than print), parasocial-style intimacy (feeling you “know” the leader), and group synchronization (“everyone is hearing this now”).

   2. Film and newsreels (authority of images + communal viewing): Film created visceral emotional sequences (music + montage), leader mythmaking, enemy depiction via “documentary” aesthetics, and a public communal reception environment (cinema). Newsreels such as Die Deutsche Wochenschau became a major wartime instrument, centrally edited and widely shown, shaping “what the war looks like.” ( Wikipedia). Herzstein’s work focuses on Goebbels’ wartime media campaign and the role of visual media in morale and perception management. ( Google Books)

   3. The press (breadth + habitual daily framing): Even where people were not avid Nazis, daily newspapers normalized the regime’s vocabulary, the day’s approved interpretive frame, and the “legitimacy” of state perspective as reality. This is why the directive system mattered: it routinized alignment.

   4. Posters, exhibitions, and public space (constant cues + “ambient” propaganda): Public space was saturated with symbols and slogans, enemy caricatures, heroic worker/soldier imagery, and exhibitions designed to instill disgust/fear and “educate” emotions. Ambient propaganda reduces the sense that ideology is optional; it becomes the environment.

   5. Cultural production (arts, music, theatre) identity formation: Control over culture let the regime elevate “German” aesthetic ideals aligned with nationalism, stigmatize “degenerate” art, and tie taste and morality to political loyalty. This mattered because propaganda is often most effective when it is experienced as culture, not as an argument.

5. Psychological mechanisms they exploited (translated into modern concepts): Goebbels didn’t need contemporary cognitive-science terms; the system exploited human social cognition in ways later research helps clarify.

   1. Social identity and belonging: build an in-group (“Volksgemeinschaft”), make identity emotionally rewarding, and treat dissent as betrayal of the group. People defend identity-linked beliefs more intensely than factual claims.

   2. Conformity pressure + pluralistic ignorance: Mass rallies, uniformity cues, controlled media, and staged consensus produce: “everyone believes this”, fear of being the lone dissenter, and mistaken belief that private doubts are rare.

   3. Authority and credibility transfer: They created leadership charisma (Hitler myth), uniformed institutions as credibility sources, and “scientific” and bureaucratic styling for racist claims.

   4. Fear, uncertainty, and threat amplification: Threat narrows attention and increases preference for strong leaders, simple explanations, and punitive policies against outgroups.

   5. Familiarity effects (repetition → seeming truth): High repetition across channels increases cognitive fluency; fluency is often misread as truth or importance (a dynamic widely documented in later psychology, even if terminology postdates the period). Doob’s classic analysis highlights systematic principles (repetition, coordination, adaptation to morale) derived from Goebbels’ practice and diaries. ( Csmeyns)

   6. Moral disengagement and dehumanization: Propaganda helped people bypass moral inhibitions by redefining victims as threats/vermin, portraying perpetrators as protectors, and treating cruelty as necessity or hygiene. Herf and Bytwerk are especially important here for how propaganda argued for exterminatory policies as defensive war. ( Google Books)

6. How it evolved over time (why the “same techniques” looked different in 1933 vs 1943): A useful historical frame (common in the scholarship) is:

   1. 1933–1936: Consolidation and synchronization. They started by eliminating plural media, institutionalizing licensing and control, and normalizing the new moral order

   2. 1936–1939: Prestige + inevitability + national destiny. then came spectacle politics (including international image management) and “peace + strength” narratives while preparing for war.

   3. 1939–1941: Blitzkrieg euphoria and narrative dominance. During the war, everything was victory framing and enemy demonization plus claims of necessity

   4. 1942–1945: “Total war” persuasion under strain. Towards the end of the war, losses were reframed as sacrifice, they intensified enemy-conspiracy narratives, and they esclated emotional pressure (“Do you want total war?” exemplifies the mobilization style, though each speech needs contextual reading)

A strong consensus in modern scholarship is that Nazi propaganda was powerful, but not omnipotent. It worked best when aligned with prior beliefs and social pressures ( Google Books), it faced credibility problems when reality contradicted messaging (bombing, casualties, shortages), and institutional rivalries could create mixed signals (even inside the Nazi system) ( Wikipedia)

7. Scholaraly Work on the System

   Goebbels / institutional system

   • Peter Longerich, Goebbels: A Biography (major diary-based political biography). ( Google Books)
   • U.S. National Archives guide to RMVP records (for primary-source research pathways). ( National Archives)

   Broad propaganda system + effectiveness debates

   • David Welch, The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda; and related work on propaganda and Volksgemeinschaft. ( Google Books)
   • Z. A. B. Zeman, Nazi Propaganda (classic overview). ( Google Books)

   Antisemitic propaganda and genocide legitimation

   • Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust. ( Google Books)
   • Randall L. Bytwerk, work on Nazi rhetoric and justificatory argumentation (e.g., “The Argument for Genocide in Nazi Propaganda”). ( Taylor & Francis Online)

   Film / aesthetics / entertainment

   • Eric Rentschler, The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife. ( Quod Libumich)
   • Scholarship on newsreels and nonfiction propaganda film (e.g., work indexed in film history outlets). ( Taylor & Francis Online)

   Contemporary analytical synthesis (historical)

   • Leonard W. Doob (1950), “Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda” (classic early scholarly attempt to systematize the method from diaries/materials). ( Csmeyns)

You can map a lot of the functions of Goebbels-style propaganda onto the modern U.S. right-wing media ecosystem, but the mechanics are different because today’s system is largely networked, platform-driven, commercially incentivized, and decentralized rather than a state monopoly. A useful way to compare is: same persuasive goals (identity, emotion, enemies, obedience/loyalty), new distribution machinery (algorithms, influencers, micro-targeted ads, participatory spread).

Goebbels’ ministry coordinated press/radio/film through directives and licensing. In the modern U.S., coordination is usually informal but can still be tight, via dense media–politics networks (politicians, pundits, podcasters, influencers, PACs, think tanks), shared narrative templates (catchphrases, frames, “villain” sets, recurring conspiratorial storylines), and repeat-amplify loops across outlets (a claim appears in fringe channels, is laundered through larger channels, then becomes a “talking point”). Benkler, Faris, and Roberts describe this as a right-wing “propaganda feedback loop” in which the ecosystem lacks strong internal correction mechanisms and instead reinforces narratives via repetition, alignment incentives, and audience demand.

Like Nazi propaganda’s existential framing, contemporary propaganda often turns policy disputes into civilizational threat narratives (“they’re coming for your kids,” “they want to replace you,” “the deep state is at war with you,” etc.). The psychological function is similar: moral licensing + identity fusion + threat arousal. The difference is that the U.S. system is not unified by the state; it’s produced across a competitive attention market (more on that below). A modern analogue to total-message repetition is saturation—producing so many claims, scandals, counterclaims, and “breaking” storylines that attention is constantly redirected, verification lags behind virality, and people default to identity-consistent interpretations. This logic is frequently discussed in connection with Steve Bannon via the phrase “flood the zone with shit,” reported as a media strategy for overwhelming the opposition and degrading shared standards of truth.

Goebbels used entertainment film, spectacle, and ritual to build belonging. Modern equivalents include talk-radio/podcast “companionship” media (parasocial bonds; daily rituals), outrage-as-entertainment formats (conflict = engagement), and memes and influencer styles that make ideology feel like culture, not argument. Benkler et al. emphasize how major nodes (they focus heavily on Fox’s role in the Trump era) can operate as core infrastructure for narrative spread.

The biggest change is the move from “one-to-many” broadcast to algorithmic feeds and recommender systems, content is ranked for engagement, audiences are segmented, and different people see different realities. Researchers describe this as part of computational propaganda —persuasion using platforms, automation, and algorithmic amplification. This enables micro-targeted identity appeals, rapid A/B testing of messages, and “soft” radicalization pathways (people are nudged by recommendations rather than commanded by a ministry).

Propaganda is now participatory: audiences co-produce and improvise and are incentivized to produced content that rewards engagement; often misinformation. Goebbels relied on top-down choreography. Modern ecosystems often rely on bottom-up spread: users “do research,” remix clips, generate memes, swarm comment sections and influencers translate narratives into many subcultural dialects. Kate Starbird calls this participatory disinformation —a blend of elite cues, hyperpartisan media, and grassroots online action that evolves in real time. Nazi propaganda was a state project. Modern propaganda often rides on ad revenue, subscriptions, donations, and engagement metrics. That means the ecosystem can select for content that is more emotionally arousing, more conspiratorial, more identity-confirming, because that performs better commercially—regardless of truth.

Modern media eco systems rely on speed, volume, and laundering. In today’s information environment, false or misleading narratives can move through a full pipeline quickly. Seed a claim (often anaonymously), amplify in niche channels, launder through commentary and selective clips, and mainstream within the ecosystem as “everyone is talking about it”. This is literally the conservative bread and butter. Bannon is best understood as an operator who treats politics as information warfare, uses podcasting and allied channels as mobilization infrastructure, and pushes “saturation” strategies that degrade the value of verification. Reporting and analysis around War Room commonly emphasize its role in agenda-setting for a specific factional audience and in sustaining conflict-centered frames. This is not unique to him, but he is a prominent exemplar of the broader network logic.

Goebbels’ system was embedded in a one-party dictatorship with coercive censorship, imprisonment, and (ultimately) genocidal state violence. That makes direct equivalence misleading. Arguably, our modern system might be worse. Rather than persuading everyone of one doctrine, modern strategies can aim to destroy shared reality (so people give up on truth-seeking and retreat to identity media)—the dynamic captured by the “propaganda feedback loop” idea. The speed induced by automation and virality also can be quite overwhelming and lead people to indecision. We also still have a degree of competig media centers, academic monitoring, and investigative journalism; so our system is powerful but not totalizing. However, we can still draw significant comparisons; there is serious overlap in the type of information and some of the old communication methods are still very prominent.

Below is a side-by-side comparison mapping major Goebbels-era techniques to modern U.S. right-wing media / propaganda dynamics (including actors like Bannon as a prominent example node), with what’s changed, how it’s amplified, and the best scholarly/policy literature to ground each claim: Goebbels techniques → modern right-wing ecosystem analogues

Goebbels / Nazi propaganda function	How it worked then	Modern analogue in U.S. right-wing ecosystem	What’s different now (amplifiers)	Key references
1) Centralized message control / synchronization	RMVP coordinated press, radio, film; daily guidance constrained what could be said and how.	Networked synchronization via partisan outlets + influencers + political elites aligning around shared frames (“talking point convergence”), with informal discipline and punishment via audience backlash.	Not one ministry; coordination emerges from ecosystem incentives (audience capture, partisan loyalty, platform virality). Benkler et al. describe an “asymmetric” right-wing media structure with a self-reinforcing loop.	Benkler/Faris/Roberts Network Propaganda (OUP/OA). ( OAPEN Library); “Propaganda feedback loop” framing. ( OUP Academic)
2) Press directives & framing the day’s reality	Daily press steering (“what matters today” + “how to interpret it”).	Agenda-setting via core nodes (e.g., high-reach cable opinion, major podcasts, large influencer accounts) that set what the ecosystem talks about; smaller outlets echo.	Faster “agenda turns” (hours not days), driven by engagement metrics and cross-platform copying.	Benkler et al. on ecosystem structure. ( OAPEN Library); Jamieson & Cappella on conservative “echo chamber” dynamics (talk radio/Fox/WSJ op-ed). ( Google Books)
3) Suppress alternatives (censorship + coercion)	Licensing, bans, professional exclusion; coercive enforcement.	Not state monopoly in the U.S., but epistemic suppression via delegitimizing institutions (“lying media,” “deep state”), harassment/swarms, and migration to “alternative” platforms when moderated.	Replacement mechanism: not silencing everyone, but undermining trust in shared referees and moving audiences into insulated spaces.	Marwick & Lewis on media manipulation tactics and exploitation of journalism/platform vulnerabilities. ( Data & Society); Starbird on cross-platform disinformation dynamics. ( Misinformation Review)
4) Repetition + simplification (“cognitive ease”)	Simple slogans, repeated across all channels until “common sense.”	High-frequency repetition across podcasts, talk radio, cable clips, TikTok/YouTube shorts, meme pages, Telegram channels, etc.	Personalization: repetition is micro-targeted (different slogans for different subcultures) and amplified by algorithmic feeds.	“Computational propaganda” research program. ( Oxford Internet Institute); Starbird on participatory disinformation. ( SAGE Journals)
5) “Flooding” and confusion as strategy	Not typically “confuse everything,” but overwhelm with consistent frames and mythic narratives; conceal defeats; distract.	“Flood the zone” logic: saturate attention with scandal/claims/counterclaims so verification can’t keep up, and people retreat to identity cues.	Modern “volume warfare” is easier because production costs are near zero (clips, memes, AI content) and distribution is automated.	Brookings on how high-output podcasts (incl. War Room) drove Big Lie spread; explicitly links to “flooding the zone.” ( Brookings); Vox reporting on the phrase/logic. ( Vox)
6) Enemy construction & scapegoating	Persistent friend–enemy worldview; outgroups cast as existential threats; antisemitism central.	Persistent civilizational-threat narratives (immigrants, “elites,” “globalists,” “deep state,” “groomers,” etc.) used to justify extreme measures and loyalty tests.	Speed + mutation: enemy narratives evolve rapidly across online subcultures; “conspiracy portability” (same template migrates to new targets).	Benkler et al. on disinformation susceptibility and ecosystem reinforcement. ( OAPEN Library); Marwick & Lewis on ideological/status/attention motives and manipulation playbooks. ( Data & Society)
7) Leader myth & charisma (“Hitler myth”)	Ritual, spectacle, constant imagery; leader as embodiment of nation.	Personalized political branding + parasocial intimacy (daily podcasts, livestreams, direct-to-audience channels) that create loyalty and “felt” authenticity.	Modern “charisma” is always-on, interactive, and monetized; leaders can bypass journalistic mediation.	Brookings on podcast intimacy + scale as misinformation vector. ( Brookings)
8) Spectacle politics / rallies as media events	Rallies choreographed for radio/newsreels; crowd scenes signal unanimity.	Rallies and “moments” designed for clip extraction: short viral segments, outrage hooks, and symbolic gestures that travel better than policy.	The event is optimized for platform-native distribution (short-form video, shareability) rather than cinema/newsreel.	Marwick & Lewis on manipulation of attention and newsworthiness. ( Data & Society)
9) Entertainment as persuasion	Much Nazi film was entertainment that normalized hierarchy and community myths.	“Identity entertainment” (opinion-as-entertainment; rage comedy; influencer culture) where politics is consumed as lifestyle media.	Algorithms privilege content that sustains watch time, outrage, or identity affirmation—commercially selecting for escalation.	Benkler et al. on ecosystem incentives and reinforcement. ( OAPEN Library)
10) “Laundering” legitimacy	Use official institutions and “serious” aesthetics to make claims feel authoritative.	Legitimacy laundering from fringe → mid-tier influencers → large outlets/politicians → “people are saying” mainstream coverage.	Cross-platform copying accelerates laundering; screenshots/clips detach claims from origin and context.	Starbird’s cross-platform campaign work; coordinated amplification patterns. ( Misinformation Review); Starbird on participatory dynamics. ( SAGE Journals)
11) Microtargeting & segmentation	Mass broadcast with some tailoring by region/occasion, but limited personalization.	Data-driven segmentation: tailored messaging by identity, geography, grievance, donation propensity; influencer “dialects” translate a core narrative into many niches.	Algorithmic personalization means segmentation happens automatically via recommender systems.	OII “cyber troops” / industrialized disinformation literature for targeting/automation as a political toolset. ( DemTech)
12) Platform manipulation & automation	Not applicable at scale; relied on centralized media ownership/control.	Bots, sockpuppets, coordinated inauthentic behavior, strategic anonymity, and “volunteer” amplification.	Blended campaigns: automation + real believers (“employees → volunteers”), making it harder to attribute and counter.	OII inventories of organized social media manipulation. ( Oxford Internet Institute); reporting on anonymous accounts exploiting right-wing channels. ( AP News)
13) Normalization through “ambient” propaganda	Posters, public exhibitions, symbols in everyday life.	Ambient propaganda becomes feed ambience: constant background exposure through memes, short clips, notifications, group chats, Telegram channels.	Always-on exposure and social proof signals (“likes,” “shares,” comments) create perceived consensus.	Telegram’s role in mobilization/propaganda noted in recent research. ( Nature)
14) Claims that reality is fake / institutions are illegitimate	Regime set the reality baseline; dissenters branded enemies.	Delegitimization of elections, courts, media, science; the goal often shifts from “believe X” to “trust only us.”	This is where “epistemic crisis” risk rises: plural realities persist, but shared referees collapse.	Benkler et al.’s “propaganda feedback loop” framing. ( OUP Academic); Brookings on Big Lie spread via podcasts. ( Brookings)
15) Measurable effects (behavior/policy)	Mobilization and compliance inside a dictatorship; hard to separate persuasion from coercion.	Empirical work shows partisan media exposure can shift votes and beliefs (e.g., Fox entry effects; COVID misinformation differences in right-leaning media).	Effects interact with selection (people choose outlets) and algorithms (outlets find people). Still measurable in some natural experiments/content analyses.	DellaVigna & Kaplan “Fox News Effect.” ( OUP Academic); Motta/Stecula/Farhart on COVID misinformation in right-leaning vs mainstream media. ( Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

Goebbels depended on centralized broadcasting and institutional control. Today, recommendation systems and engagement ranking can amplify sensational, identity-confirming content. Research on YouTube, for example, is mixed in “algorithm causes radicalization” claims, but there’s a strong literature on how recommendations can contribute to exposure patterns and polarization dynamics depending on user pathways and platform changes. ( PMC) Today however, the richest man on the planet owns the largest social media platform and deliberately constructs messages consistent with the party objectives.

A crucial modern change is that disinformation often spreads via mass participation: elites and influencers cue narratives, and grassroots users “investigate,” remix, and amplify—sometimes sincerely. ( SAGE Journals) Traceability in this world becomes difficult. Often times, some bullshit story is produced and distributed on multiple platforms. This is the virality concept deliberately engineered. Content can be moderated on one platform and still thrive via cross-posting to others (podcasts → clips → Telegram → alt-video → back again). ( Misinformation Review)

Nazi propaganda was state-directed; modern propaganda often runs on attention markets (ads, subscriptions, donations), selecting for emotionally arousing content that keeps audiences loyal. Marwick & Lewis document how manipulators exploit these incentives and the vulnerabilities of journalism and platforms. ( Data & Society)

• A focused annotated bibliography (scholarly / high-quality policy research)

  Media-ecosystem structure and right-wing feedback loops

  • Benkler, Faris, Roberts (2018), Network Propaganda (Oxford University Press; open access)
    The most-cited map of the 2016 U.S. media ecosystem; argues the right operates in a comparatively insulated network with reinforcement dynamics (“asymmetric polarization”). ( OAPEN Library)
  • Benkler et al., “propaganda feedback loop” formulation
    A specific conceptual model of how politicians, media outlets, and audiences interact when truth-seeking is crowded out by identity-confirming narratives. ( OUP Academic)
  • Jamieson & Cappella, Echo Chamber (OUP)
    Earlier (pre-social media) but still important for understanding talk radio/cable as an insulated interpretive system that predates the Trump era. ( Google Books)

  Digital manipulation playbooks and attention hacking

  • Marwick & Lewis (2017), “Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online” (Data & Society)
    Foundational report on how networked groups exploit platform affordances and newsroom incentives to drive coverage and polarization. ( Data & Society)

  Participatory and cross-platform disinformation

  • Starbird (2023), “Participatory Disinformation during the 2020 US Election” (Social Media + Society)
    Peer-reviewed account of domestic, participatory disinformation, showing influencer + grassroots co-production dynamics. ( SAGE Journals)
  • Wilson et al. / Starbird lab (2020), “Cross-Platform Disinformation Campaigns” (Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review PDF)
    Detailed empirical study of how disinformation campaigns move across platforms and recruit/activate publics. ( Misinformation Review)

  Computational propaganda / organized manipulation (global comparative work)

  • Oxford Internet Institute (DemTech) “cyber troops” / industrialized disinformation reports
    Major long-running research program cataloguing organized social media manipulation, automation, and political uses of platforms. ( DemTech)

  Empirical “effects” studies (media exposure → beliefs/behavior)

  • DellaVigna & Kaplan (2007), “The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting” (QJE)
    Classic natural-experiment style evidence that Fox’s entry into cable markets measurably shifted vote share and turnout. ( OUP Academic)
  • Motta, Stecula, Farhart (2020), COVID misinformation in right-leaning media (CJPS)
    Content-analysis evidence of differential misinformation prevalence early in the pandemic across right-leaning vs mainstream outlets. ( Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

  Podcasts as propaganda infrastructure (useful for the Bannon example) ¶

  • Wirtschafter & Meserole (2022), Brookings: political podcasts and the Big Lie
    Data-driven analysis of top U.S. political podcasts (Apple Top 100 in Nov 2020), documenting high rates of episodes endorsing misleading election narratives; highlights War Room among high-output shows and explicitly connects to “flooding the zone.” ( Brookings)
  • (Contextual press coverage of the same line of research exists, but Brookings is the cleanest source to cite for methods and findings.) ( Business Insider)

I think we should focus election narratives and talk radio because they’re the two modern pieces that most closely recreate the functional role of Goebbels-era propaganda: (1) a dominant mass-audio channel that feels intimate and authoritative, and (2) a legitimating meta-narrative that tells followers which institutions are “real,” which are “enemies,” and why extraordinary action is justified. And while modern conservative propaganda is proliferating in modern social media ecosystems, we cannot forget the demographic of users who frequently use talk show radio and traditional media outlets: Gen-X and Boomers. These make up the most significant portions of Trumps base and are frequent users of these “older” outlets.

Radio in the Third Reich was powerful because it created ubiquity (a shared national soundtrack), intimacy (the leader/voice “in your home”), synchrony (everyone hears it at once), habit (daily repetition), and the sense that the authoritative interpretation is being delivered directly. Talk radio (especially the style studied around Rush Limbaugh and successors) recreates those same effects in a democratic, competitive environment—by building a daily interpretive authority rather than a state monopoly. Jamieson & Cappella describe an “echo chamber” dynamic in conservative media (anchored historically in talk radio and later cable), where audiences are encouraged to treat mainstream journalism as illegitimate, accept insider frames supplied by trusted voices, and and reinforce those frames through repetition across allied outlets. In both eras, they relied on interpretation management. During the Nazi era, Ministry-aligned messaging + press steering ensured the public received the same story about what events mean. Now, a host-driven ecosystem supplies ready-made interpretations that listeners can carry into conversations, social media, church/community spaces, and voting decisions. Research specifically on Limbaugh-era talk radio finds measurable differences in how listeners interpret politics and attribute causes, consistent with the idea that the show provides a packaged explanatory frame. These can also be influences on podcasts (Tucker Carlson, Rogan).

These are the parts that “map” most directly:

1. A charismatic narrator (“trusted voice”): The host becomes a daily authority—less like a reporter and more like a commander of meaning. This is close to Goebbels’ “single voice” effect, but achieved through loyalty, entertainment, and identity, not law.
2. Affective conditioning: Humor, ridicule, moral disgust, and anger are not “extras”; they’re the delivery vehicle. Emotion narrows attention and makes people rely more on identity cues (“people like us know what’s really going on”).
3. In-group community + out-group contempt: Call-ins and “dittohead”-style identity build a “we.” The “we” is strengthened by a consistent villain set (media, elites, liberals, bureaucrats), producing a friend–enemy worldview.
4. Repetition and cognitive ease: Daily catchphrases, recurring villains, recurring moral lessons. That repeated familiarity is a major credibility engine even when factual claims are shaky.
5. Agenda-setting by selection: If the host talks about X every day, it feels important; if Y is ignored, it feels irrelevant.

The strongest “media effects” baseline in adjacent conservative media is the Fox News entry natural experiment ( The Fox News Effect): where Fox became available, Republican vote share increased by a measurable margin. For talk radio specifically, both classic and newer work finds associations/effects consistent with political influence (e.g., “Limbaugh effect” in primary voters; later work modeling exposure).

Election narratives map cleanly onto Goebbels-style “regime reality”: define legitimacy itself. One of the most dangerous propaganda moves is shifting the question from “what happened?” to “who counts as a legitimate authority to tell you what happened?” That’s the deep structure behind election delegitimization campaigns. Modern U.S. election-disinformation scholarship often frames 2020–present dynamics as moving beyond a single false claim into a broader crisis of democratic legitimacy. An Oxford University Press chapter explicitly tracks “Stop the Steal” as rhetoric of electoral delegitimacy and argues skepticism about the election can spill into skepticism about democracy itself, with implications for support for political violence. This maps directly onto the Nazis “enemy within” rhetoric. Back then, internal enemies were blamed for national betrayal; extraordinary measures become “self-defense.” And now, election officials, urban voters, machines, courts, or “the deep state” are cast as the internal sabotage mechanism; extraordinary measures become “saving the country.”

Election narratives do 3 propaganda-critical things at once:

1. They protect leader identity: If “our leader can’t lose legitimately,” then any loss becomes proof of sabotage. This hardens a closed epistemic loop.
2. They create a permanent emergency: An always-threatened system justifies perpetual mobilization (“watch the polls,” “take the country back,” etc.).
3. They authorize rule-breaking: If the other side “stole” power, then countermeasures feel morally licensed.

This is precisely what the Nazis were able to acheive. However, with participatory disinformation, todays system can be more scalable than Goebbels broadcast model. Kate Starbird’s work describes participatory disinformation during the 2020 election: influencers and hyperpartisan media work with ordinary people who co-produce, reinterpret, and amplify misleading fraud claims—often sincerely. Functionally, that means the audience isn’t just receiving propaganda; they’re helping manufacture it. Modern propaganda relies heavily on volume-based approaches. A Goebbels-style system tries to make one story dominant. Modern election narratives often work by making verification feel impossible and “everyone is lying” feel reasonable. Brookings analyzed top political podcasts after the 2020 election and documented substantial spread of unsubstantiated fraud narratives, highlighting how high-output shows can help drive agenda and repetition—directly echoing the “flooding” logic.

Platform dynamics have significantly changed the game. Fraud claims go viral before anyone can respond because no one has any fucking epistemic vigilance. Narratives evolve very rapidly, for one debunk there are five new variants. Data & Society’s Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online is a foundational description of how manipulators exploit platform affordances and mainstream media incentives to amplify misleading narratives. And large-scale platform studies directly note the importance of election-fraud narratives and Stop the Steal dynamics in the 2020 environment (including how elite emphasis interacts with online spread).

The crucial difference is that Goebbels operated inside a state-enforced monopoly. Modern U.S. propaganda is an ecosystem: competitive, decentralized, and market-driven. But the key mapping is this:

• Radio intimacy + habit → daily talk radio/podcast companionship and identity reinforcement
• Central framing (“what it means”) → host/influencer interpretive authority; ecosystem echoing
• Enemy within → election system delegitimization, “deep state” story templates
• Mass mobilization via narrative → Stop the Steal-style participatory disinformation and real-world action
• Repetition across channels → podcast/talk/cable/social repetition and laundering

Conclusions ¶

I’ll likely be adding to this. I’ve not even scratched the surface. If you are following anything that is going on, you know that following the situation can be increasingly difficult; and this is by design (based on what’s described in the media section). I think we are systematically being fucked with on a scale I never thought i’d see in my life.

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