The Majesty of the Law, &c.

On constitutional monarchy, a fountain in Rome, America’s ‘loutocracy,’ and more

The royal palace in Oslo (Photo by Jahanzeb Ahsan on Unsplash)

As regular readers know, I’m a big democrat, meaning a staunch advocate of democracy, and specifically of liberal democracy. That’s basically what an American conservative, in my book, is. (European conservatives and other conservatives—those are different stories.)

I have no use for dictatorships or monarchies. And what is the Saudi “monarchy” but a dictatorship? No matter that they call themselves kings and queens, and princes and princesses, rather than El Jefe or Der Führer or what have you?

One form of democracy is constitutional monarchy—a form I have a lot of time for. Several countries “evolved” from monarchy to democracy, retaining the monarchy in ceremonial form.

Great Britain, of course. And Spain. (King Juan Carlos—whatever else one might say about him—played a laudable role in his country’s evolution.) And the Scandinavian states …

I would like to cite a story in the news. The following headline is not very pleasant, except in one respect: “Son of Norway’s crown princess arrested on new allegations ahead of his rape trial.” (Article here.)

In what respect is that headline “pleasant”? These royals are subject to the law, same as everyone else. For centuries, such characters had immunity. They were above the law. In a constitutional monarchy, not so.

I am making an elementary point—maybe too elementary—but that’s part of what I do, in this recurring lil’ column of mine …

(With some regularity, you hear an American say, “We’re not a democracy, we’re a republic!” Three years ago, I wrote an essay on democracy, saying pretty much all I could think to say on the subject. If you’d like to have a look, here it is.)

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I remember the first time I saw the Trevi Fountain. It was in the summer of 1982, between my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college. My great-aunt—who was both a great-aunt and a great aunt, without the hyphen—took me on a trip to Europe (as she had taken my sister a couple years before).

Anyway, enough of my Memory Lane …

My eye was drawn to this news story:

Tourists hoping to get close to the Trevi Fountain had to pay 2 euros ($2.35) starting Monday as the city of Rome inaugurated a new fee structure to help raise money and control crowds at the one of the world’s most celebrated waterworks.

Sounds good—sounds sensible—to me.

Hey, you wanna pause for a language note—the kind of note that usually appears later in my column?

The second paragraph of that news story reads,

The first tourists to pass through the new ticket check seemed nonplussed by the tariff, noting it was a small price to pay for quality access to a fountain made famous by Federico Fellini’s movie “La Dolce Vita.”

That’s not what “nonplussed” means. “Nonplussed” means “unsure about what to say, think, or do : PERPLEXED.”

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In normal times, this would be a blockbuster news story in America, and therefore ’round the world: “ ‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company.”

That article is from the Wall Street Journal. Here is the subheading: “$500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips.”

This is grotesque corruption. Yet it barely makes a ripple in today’s environment. When impeachable offenses come in a steady stream, is anything impeachable?

And if you object to grotesque corruption, you know what they’ll say: You suffer from “TDS,” i.e., “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Or maybe you’re just a sentient citizen?

The authors of the Journal’s report are Sam Kessler, Rebecca Ballhaus, Eliot Brown, and Angus Berwick. They have entered Woodward & Bernstein territory. But there will never be a movie about them, as there was about that earlier pair (All the President’s Men). In the Trump era, people can barely stir themselves to yawn—no matter what is revealed.

President Trump and his GOP have no greater asset than the numbness of the public.

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George F. Will has come up with a new term. The Trump administration, he writes, “requires an addition to the typologies of government: loutocracy.”

I think of another term, and I owe it mainly to Rod Blagojevich. “Blago,” as you remember, was the governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009. He then went to prison, as governors of Illinois tend to do. Blagojevich was corrupt to the gills.

And Trump, of course, sprang him—commuted his sentence.

Blago was a Democrat. But this is what he said when sprung: “If you’re asking what my party affiliation is, I’m a Trumpocrat.”

Perfect. And there are a great many Trumpocrats in the present Trumpocracy.

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The Dispatch has published an editorial titled “The Cost of Silence.” The gist of it is: Speak up, Republicans, especially in Congress. Find your voice. Find your spine. Take a stand. Man up.

I’m glad to be affiliated with The Dispatch, as a contributing writer.

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Let me note, too, a column in the Washington Post by Ramesh Ponnuru. The subheading will give you a flavor of the column: “For Trump officials, fighting the administration’s enemies is more important than being decent.”

A reader of that column pointed out to me a hidden pun: Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol capo with the cape, has “been put out to pasture.”

(Bovino, in Italian, means “bovine.”)

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The Jerusalem Post had an editorial with an arresting headline: “Just say ‘Jew.’” The editorial begins,

Vice President JD Vance marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 with a message honoring “millions of lives lost,” yet he did not mention Jews or Nazis.

I myself would like to make another point. I know that people mean well, and I would not be too hard on them. But I have always chafed at the formulation “lives were lost” or “he lost his life.” And I have always chafed at the word “perished”—they “perished” in the Holocaust.

No, damn it: they were murdered.

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There are lots of people who think the Confederacy is—way cool. I loved a response by Franz-Stefan Gady. He was responding to this:

Mr. Gady said, “It couldn’t even kick a single liberal arts college professor off a hilltop in Pennsylvania after he ran out of ammo.”

Joshua Chamberlain was a man of extraordinary, and diverse, abilities.

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A few days ago, I learned a phrase that I expect to be in my repertoire forever. I was joshing with my man Willie and said, “Hell, no.” Backing me up, and agreeing with me, he said, “Hell to the no!”

Great.

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A little music? The heading over a review by me of a New York Philharmonic concert is “The case of the red-soled shoes, etc.” That was a strange evening, lemme tell you …

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I’d like to ask you a question: Would you prefer longer, less frequent columns from me or shorter, more frequent ones? If you care to answer, I’m at mail@jaynordlinger.com. Or leave a comment in the comments.

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A snowy, icy twilight in New York:

A spiky, shiny, crystal-filled New York:

Thank you so much, my friends. Later.