Donald Trump didn’t try and hide his delight at the gift of an ancient crown symbolizing the “divine connection between the authority of the heavens and sovereignty on earth.”
The South Koreans had him at hello.
The inference that the most powerful man on the planet was some kind of demi-God was singing to the MAGA choir. Even if the golden headpiece was a replica.
Trump went from impotent to important after winning the 2024 presidential election. Now he considers himself omnipotent.
And while his own country may still be split down the middle over whether he should be regarded as a King or No King, the rest of the world has already made up its mind.
They are paying courtiers to the MAGA court of King Don.
Leaders who won’t pay fealty have found they pay a heavy price. Mark Carney discovered too late that a nod and a wink behind Trump’s back didn’t save Canada from a heavy tariff. Maybe he should have offered a gilded maple leaf. Or his country. These are the gifts that get Trump’s attention.
Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t bother dressing up, and all he got was a dressing down.
But South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung is well aware that the noise from a wrecking ball in the East Wing is not all that is music to the president’s ears.
Despite being mistaken for a mere prime minister on his August trip to the White House, Lee successfully navigated what could have been a difficult meeting by repeatedly banging on about how much he loved all the gold in the White House.
Lee worked out how to work Trump. Show him the love in the way his hard-nosed father never could. Fred Trump Sr. was described as a “high-functioning sociopath” by his niece, Mary. Any amateur psychologist could tell you that Fred’s third and most successful child would be thirsty for attention.
South Korea’s gift to Trump, the replica gold-and-jade diadem, with its arms reaching to the sky like Nevada cacti, represented “the spirit of Silla, which brought peace to the Korean Peninsula for the first time,” the president was told by a South Korean official.
As Trump was led to see the real relic from the first century B.C. at the neighboring Gyeongju National Museum, Lee no doubt told him that the Silla dynasty was known as the “Golden Kingdom.”
Lee even wore a gold tie. And served gold-decorated brownies for lunch.
Hitting all the right buttons. He threw in a shiny necklace. The Grand Order of Mugunghwa, South Korea’s highest decoration, will look good behind the bar at Mar-a-Lago. Or on Trump’s chest if he decided to play dress-up with the crown and jewels back at the Gyeongju Hilton.
Lee was rewarded with a reduced 15 percent tariff deal, relative peanuts when compared to the levies Trump had threatened.
Qatar is another country that understands the president who would be king. There was a time when a monarch would require the best horse. Now they should have the best plane. What’s $400 million when you are buying the love of the most powerful man on the planet with a jet?
An audience with Trump? No problem. Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani popped onto Air Force One for a chat when Trump stopped to refuel on the way to Malaysia.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is a world-class schmoozer. So when he needed help with the World Cup, which will be held in the U.S. next year, he happily handed Trump a golden replica of the FIFA Club World Cup trophy for the Oval Office. His wish was duly granted—a MAGA World Cup.
And leave it to the Brits to give Trump the right royal treatment. Sitting next to the tiara-wearing Kate Middleton and counting King Charles’ medals for who knows what, Trump was beaming. He was so pleased with himself, he thanked the U.K. for helping America become the “hottest country in the world”, and called Charles a “very special Queen,” although the compliment was almost certainly meant for Camilla.
A fancy carriage parade through the empty Windsor Park and Sir Keir Starmer’s stammering bromance with a man whose politics are diametrically opposite to his own helped cement the Special Relationship.
Trump felt at home with a king who is accountable only to God.
Back home, his White House is run like King Henry VIII’s court. Only loyalists are welcome. Everyone else will lose their jobs, if not their heads. Cabinets are conducted like an Ellen DeGeneres show staff meeting. Everyone agrees with the boss.
On Wednesday, Trump suggested he couldn’t run for a third term. But he will be looking for an heir as carefully as he tends his hair.
And he will remain the power behind the throne.
Trump is having a good moment. He feels untouchable. He feels like everything he touches is turning to gold. Foreign leaders are so concerned about the power of his presidency and his capricious nature that they cannot afford to deny him.
But Marie Antoinette found to her cost that there was not enough cake; British princes died in a tower; a Bolshevik firing squad executed Tsar Nicholas II and his family.
And King Midas, at least in myth, ended up as the punchline in a gold morality tale.
The royal crowns from the Silla dynasty were long lost in buried tombs, and the days of real royal power are long gone.
King Donald may rule for now, but the Republic rose against the Crown before.
It will do it again.
The post Opinion: Why a Craven World Is Crowning the MAGA King Don appeared first on The Daily Beast.
