The Historical Injustice of Comparing Trump to Kings

Yesterday, I came across an article by Stephen Collinson, published on CNN Portugal, titled "Trump has been on the rise for a long time. But that may be changing." The headline stated: "Trump is succeeding, but he's increasingly looking like a king. And we all know what the US has done to kings."

The initial emphasis, in addition to being inaccurate, reveals a double error: it starts from a distorted view of history and resorts to an unfair association between the royal figure and the idea of authoritarianism.

The expression "looks like kings" is used as a derogatory metaphor, assuming that every monarch is, by nature, an arbitrary ruler. This interpretation ignores the fact that, at various historical moments, the monarchy has been subject to strict legal and institutional limits.

With Great Britain as the colonizing power of the future United States, the Magna Carta of 1215 had already established fundamental principles limiting royal power, guaranteeing rights and liberties to subjects and affirming that the King was subject to the law. Centuries later, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 consolidated a model of constitutional monarchy that endures to this day as an example of stability and liberty, establishing the supremacy of Parliament over the monarch through the Bill of Rights of 1689 , which reinforced fundamental guarantees and established a lasting balance between royal power and representative institutions—foundations that continued to develop through other constitutional and parliamentary frameworks, demonstrating that the figure of the monarch is not synonymous with absolute power.

In Portugal, similarly, from the Cortes of Coimbra in 1211 until the Constitution of 1826, the King was bound by solemn oaths and fundamental laws that protected the rights of his subjects. Today, countries like Norway, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom itself, all constitutional monarchies, rank among the most democratic and prosperous nations in the world.

Regarding the independence of the United States, it's worth clarifying: the American Revolution was not fought against the monarchical institution itself, but against the particular way in which King George III and the British Parliament administered the colonies. The colonists complained of having no political representation and of being subject to laws and taxes imposed from outside, without their consent. The famous slogan "no taxation without representation" expressed this demand for participation, not a generalized repudiation of the monarchy as a system of government.

It's also important to note that the presidential model created by the Americans, by concentrating both the head of state and the head of government in the same person, grants the president executive powers that a modern constitutional monarch does not hold. The sovereign in a parliamentary monarchy does not govern, does not legislate, and does not act as a party leader, but rather as an arbiter and symbol of national unity.

Using the word "kings" as a synonym for abuse of power is, therefore, more of a rhetorical device than a faithful portrayal of historical reality. Constitutional monarchy, far from representing despotism, has, in many cases, guaranteed institutional continuity, political neutrality, and safeguarded freedoms. Reducing this institution to the simplified image of a ruler who makes unilateral decisions is, at the very least, an injustice to centuries of political and legal evolution.

Degree in Political Science and International Relations // The author writes using the old orthographic agreement