The Emperor Trump
He who saves his Country does not violate any Law. -- Donald Trump on Truth Social and X, Saturday
He who saves a nation violates no law. -- Napoleon I, from the script of "Waterloo," 1970
~~~ Marie: Notice, first, the difference in the two remarks. Trump can't even copy a citation properly. The line attributed to Napoleon here has poetic meter. It's succinct. It's memorable. It's, well, quotable. Trump messes with the meter, for no discernible reason, and garbles it. He reminds me of my son when he was three years old. My son heard Don McLean's "American Pie" on the radio and sang the chorus. But he had a little trouble with the lyrics: "Bye-bye, Miss American Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levee ... 'Cause my horse was dead." When a three-year-old does it, it's pretty cute. Trump's misquote: stupid.
Second, only an aspiring dictator would want to emulate a real one. So using a citation attributed to a notorious dictator to justify your own lawlessness is appalling.
Third, the citation is fake. It's a scripted device, a way to examine the soul of a very flawed character. Here is the Emperor Napoleon, played by Rod Steiger in the 1970 Dino De Laurentiis epic film "Waterloo." He is dictating a letter to a Prince Alexis. Alexis is a fictional device, as is the letter. But listen to it anyway.
Fourth, in the story, Napoleon dictates the letter shortly after he overthrew a more-or-less legitimate constitutional monarch (Louis XVIII) and not long before before he will meet his Waterloo.
Fifth, Napoleon did not save his nation. Waterloo effectively ended of the French empire. The coalition that defeated Napoleon imposed a harsh treaty on France.
Most important, though, is the irony in the assertion Trump copied. The Napoleon character contends that the ends justify the means. He has saved his country, and that excuses his breaking its laws. But the 20th-century viewer watching "Waterloo" knows Napoleon ruined his nation rather than saved it. The viewer knows that both the character's assumption and his conclusion are false. Trump doesn't understand that. He completely misses the point of the scriptwriter's "letter to Alexis." The purpose is not to demonstrate that Napoleon's lawlessness was warranted. Rather, the viewer watching the scene sees that Napoleon is delusional. The viewer hears it in Steiger's tone, sees it in Steiger's dramatic expression.
And we see it in Trump. The very premise of Trump's assertion is antithetical to the American ethos. What "makes America great" is not the unfettered rule of one individual but the efforts we make together to adhere to a written Constitution, to uphold that Constitution's Amendments -- particularly those that ensure equal protections -- and to follow a rule of law consistent with the Constitution and normative values.
If we did not already know that Trump, like Steiger's Napoleon, was delusional; if we did not already know Trump is ruining out country, not saving it; if we did not already know that Trump's lawlessness is unjustified -- then his clumsy adoption of this borrowed dictum would prove it all.
Alex Woodward of the Independent: “Donald Trump appeared to quote Napoleon Bonaparte by way of Rod Steiger on Saturday afternoon after his blitzkrieg of executive actions and threats to federal agencies under Elon Musk were challenged in courts across the country, raising alarms that his administration is preparing to shred court orders and ignite a constitutional crisis.... The president ... invoked a quote often attributed to Napoleon, who justified his despotic regime as the will of the people of France.... Within his first month in office, Trump’s allies have baselessly argued Trump’s supreme authority as president, immune from checks and balances, as his executive orders and Musk’s access to the levers of government face an avalanche of lawsuits and restraining orders....
“Comments [by Musk & other Trump supporters] are raising alarms among constitutional scholars and legal analysts for an impending constitutional crisis — which the White House blames on the judges, not the president’s spurious legal actions and the administration’s baseless insistence that he should not be subject to checks and balances in the courts. The New York Times’s Jamelle Bouie called Trump’s latest statement 'the single most un-American and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an American president.'”
Update. Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: “By late afternoon, Mr. Trump had pinned the statement to the top of his Truth Social feed, making it clear it was not a passing thought but one he wanted people to absorb. The official White House account on X posted his message in the evening.” ~~~
~~~ Despite acknowledging how important it is to Trump to impress his message upon the public, the Times writers treat it as if it's no big deal, nothing more than “an expansive version of the so-called unitary executive theory, a legal ideology....” It's just Trump explaining a legal theory to the great unwashed. I do realize that Haberman retains her valuable access to Trump and the Talking Trumpettes by maintaining a deadpan style of writing and speaking about Donald. But after years on the Trump beat, Haberman has a bit of a case of Stockholm syndrome, and her impassive voice sometimes smacks of acceptance of outrageous behavior.
Thanks to RAS for getting me started.
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Reader Comments (12)
My disturbing take on the Pretender's misquote of something Napoleon never said is the likelihood that he knows none the real or fictional history behind it.
Someone just handed it to him, told him it would make him sound tough, and he thought it would, so he did...and he flubbed it.
An empty head atop an empty suit.
Unable he was ere he saw Elon
And after, even more so…
Mr. Best Wirds demonstrates yet again his woeful ignorance of history by adopting, clumsily, as is his wont, the tyrannical mantra of a self-proclaimed emperor.
It has been a running gag probably since the 19th century that mentally disturbed people think they’re Napoleon. Still do, it seems.
But Mr. Kennedy Center Chairman is just as ignorant of the arts as he is of history. Had he rudimentary knowledge of arts history, for example, he’d be aware that a titan of western music, no less a personage than Beethoven, originally dedicated his third symphony, the monumental Eroica Symphony, to Napoleon, thinking him to be a man of the people who was helping to usher in an age of democracy.
When Bonaparte crowned himself emperor, a furious Beethoven scratched out his name on the dedication page.
But at least Napoleon can be said to have pulled himself up from a life of poverty on his own, and by his cunning as a battlefield commander and military strategist scared the crap out of all Europe. Fatty McHitler has lucked out at every turn and had everything handed to him but still believes himself to have earned his emperorhood, or whatever you’d call it.
Oh yeah, and eventually all Europe, tired of Napoleon’s bullying ways, got together and kicked his ass. Stable Genius Boy must have missed that minor detail.
@Ken Winkes: I think it quite likely that you're right: that Trump knows nothing about the source of the quote. But that doesn't negate what I've written; it only enhances the evidence that he's a "natural" despot.
Barring the AP from access to the throne appears to be, on its face, the actions of a small, petty, insecure tyrant, and it certainly is that, but it serves other purposes as well.
For Fat Hitler it’s a way to demonstrate his absolute authority in all things, even something as stupid as his ridiculous need to insist that his renaming of a body of water be unchallenged, not even questioned. It also highlights his intolerance for the tiniest pushback against what he sees as his supreme power over everything and everyone, that what he says goes.
The 2020 election was STOLEN! J6 thugs are PATRIOTS! Greenland, Gaza, Panama, and Canada are MINE! FBI agents who investigated me are TRAITORS! Etc. Yes, it’s petty and childish, like so much of what this whiny titty baby does, but he’s a whiny infant with immense power, largely because no one will stand up to him.
The minute someone points out that the emperor has no clothes, he’s done and he senses that. He’s getting back at everyone for all the slights, real or imagined, all the snickers, the jokes, the laughs about his small hands, his weight, his lies about how smart, rich, good looking, impressive he is.
But I’m hoping the AP doesn’t give in, like everyone else. Do they really need to be on Air Force One? What will they learn? Nothing. Lies. Propaganda. Stupidity. This shit has to stop somewhere. Democrats aren’t doing shit. The MSM is mostly flummoxed. He’s already said laws and judges don’t matter.
The emperor has no clothes. And he’s fat and gross and dangerously delusional. We just need someone to say it and keep saying it.
@Akhilleus: Well, yes to all that. But you misspelled STOLLEN!
Tomorrow being president's* day, I'm wondering if Elon will allow
Donald to sit in the Oval Office and pretend to be in charge.
Maybe they'll be dancing in the ballroom, with Donald wearing
ballet tights. (I wouldn't want to witness that!).
One more try.
I clicked on this YouTube article because of the headline:
Trump's FBI pick, Kash Patel drops bombshell--arrests of Biden
& Harris possible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDHhrWuX8
I couldn't watch it all, too much BS, so didn't see that part. Could be
fake news.
@Forrest Morris: I tried the link you provided and got a notice that the video is no longer available.
It will help you to check the producer of a YouTube video before you waste your time on it. I generally don't watch videos even by producers who are sometimes reliable because many titles are sensationalist efforts to garner clicks. If a sensational title suggests to me something might be true, I usually don't watch the video but might Google the claim to see if any "real" news media picked up a story on a similar topic. But in general, YouTube, like any social media site, is not a place to go to for news -- unless the producer is a known entity like CNN or the BBC.
And don't think that because their titles sound "liberal" that they're much more useful than right-wing propaganda. My sense is that some of the liberal-leaning videos are produced by people who tell fewer lies than some right-wing folks, but the liberal propaganda is still fairly useless because it's mostly just speculation.
If the guy who was arrested waiting for FH on the golf course ever gets his day in court I wonder if he will use these words from FH as part of his defense?
RAS,
Good point. But Fatty’s lawyers will shout that claiming something as obviously unAmerican and delusional as that proves that the guy is nuts…um…wait. Start again…
Better answer correctly…
The avuncular and crazily knowledgeable commentator for the Metropolitan Opera Saturday broadcasts, Ira Siff, tells a very funny story about the importance of the right answer.
Way back in 1965, the Met wrangled three of the last century’s operatic superstars, the supreme Diva, Maria Callas, the tenor Franco Corelli, who had burst on the scene like a supernova a few years earlier, and the great baritone Tito Gobbi, for a wild performance of “Tosca”. Opera fanatics waited outside in the cold for hours to get tickets at the Old Met in NYC. Coming around the corner was the soprano Loretta Di Lelia, the wife of Franco Corelli, pushing a cart of hot coffee and donuts. This was back in the day of huge operatic feuds and jealousies. As she pushed her cart along the line, she would stop and inquire as to each fan’s loyalties, “Are you here for Callas or Corelli?”
If the answer was Corelli, they got coffee and a donut. If Callas, they got nothing. Coming up to Ira, she eyed him carefully and asked “Callas or Corelli?” not sure which way to go he answered “Gobbi”.
He got the coffee but no donut.
This anecdote came to mind as we down here in Kentucky are experiencing flooding followed by heavy snows. A weird and bad combination. The Democratic governor, Andy Beshear has declared a state of emergency and asked for help from FEMA, but newly appointed something or other, the dog murderer, Kristi Noem is delaying things, saying FEMA needs to be dismantled along with the rest of the federal government.
I can picture a reconstituted (sort of) emergency mismanagement thingie under Noem’s control, with pimply faced MuskRat approved agents going door to door asking “Trump or Harris?”. If the answer is Trump, they get help, if it’s Harris, they get nothing.
That’s pretty much the way things are now anyway.
What he was thinking but didn't say...
He who saves his own Ass does not violate any Law...