So that’s what a normal leader sounds like.
King Charles helped me remember what an actual dignitary and classy leader sounds like. What a refreshing change from the guy who prides himself on being a thug with only the faintest grasp of the English language.
Mind you, I wasn’t a supporter of Charles’ coming to the United States for a state visit. I thought it would disgrace the crown for the King of England to break bread with a fascist, felonious president — an authoritarian who launched a coup after losing an election.
But Charles changed my mind simply with his low-key presence and eloquent style, showing by example how a man of eminence is supposed to behave. The contrast with Trump could not have been more glaring.
As an old guy, I can remember when Charles was still the lowly Prince of Wales — and he was mostly loathed by the public. That was especially true while he was married to Princess Diana. She was beloved, while he was considered dull, boorish, distant, cold, stuffy.
When Charles and Di’s relationship unraveled, the world fully sided with her. No one could figure out why he’d choose Camila Parker Bowles over the ravishing Diana. The public grief was enormous when Diana died in 1997, and it hardened into anger at the royal establishment and Charles personally.
But time healed the gaping wound. Charles spent years focusing on public service. His relationship with Camilla, once so scandalous, gradually became normalized. He grew more comfortable as a public figure – less stiff, sometimes even self-aware and glib.
Once Charles became King, he wasn’t (and isn’t) universally beloved, but he’s broadly accepted in a way once thought impossible. He’s still not terribly charismatic, yet he’s seen as a steadying influence and nothing close to the abomination Trump has proven to be. He’s shown himself to be the new leader of the Free World.
When King Charles III addressed Congress this week, he was a man determined to restore the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States that Trump had seemingly irretrievably broken with his bullheadedness, his rancor, his sheer idiocy.
Charles spoke about alliances as commitments, not as something that could be bought and sold off like a stock. He invoked the name of Ukraine to discuss our obligation to have its back, not pretend to support it until Vladimir Putin crows too loudly.
In short, King Charles came across as the international community’s conscience, the kind of overseer America used to be. He was dignified. He was articulate without being preachy. He was polite. He was quietly magnetic.
And beside him stood Trump, looking and sounding every bit like the oaf he is. He was there physically but in no way spiritually. He delivered his usual bluster, whiny and with a side of stupefied. His rhetoric inflamed without illuminating, as it always does. The man is incapable of genuine elucidation. It was an embarrassment to know this was the best this country can do.
As Charles spoke, I thought back to last weekend and Trump’s speech after the White House Correspondence Dinner and how the president used the occasion of a genuine crisis as a moment to re-pitch his ballroom project, to sell another monstrosity bearing his worthless name.
It was so ludicrous that it’s now become a meme. There is one of schoolchildren cowering beneath a desk as a shooter lurks in the shadows when one of them says, “You know what would’ve prevented this? A ballroom.”
This is a man who values things over people, materialism over empathy, wealth over relationships. If you were to attempt to create a human being with the worst imaginable traits on a 3D printer, Trump is what would pop out.
What Trump really wants, of course, is to completely destroy anything approaching dissent. He would far prefer to have a populace exhibiting phony acquiescence than one demonstrating genuine beliefs. This is why he and his wretched wife Melania want so desperately to quiet Jimmy Kimmel and force ABC to dump him or risk losing its license.
Hopefully, Disney has learned its lesson and won’t make the same mistake it once made. This administration is one that utterly lacks a sense of humor and cannot fully comprehend laughing at itself. This is one of the hallmarks of fascism.
Say what you will about King Charles, but he seems to understand the concept of placing values over all else. Trump does not. This is one of the most reprehensible things about him, though not the most reprehensible. To gauge that, we should hold a contest where everyone gets a vote.
All I know is, one of the key reasons why I don’t want to travel internationally at the moment is that any question tossed at me about living in a nation overseen by our criminal-in-chief would prove entirely too humiliating. I would have no explanation. I’d be worried that customs might stamp my passport with, “Somehow lives willingly in the U.S.”
The truth is that I don’t have a lot of choice at the moment. Oh sure, I could get a visa to spend months at a time in Mexico or Canada, and that’s often tempting. But at the same time, I feel like my leaving would mean Trump won. And I certainly want to be here when he goes so I can dance with frenetic abandon in the country he did his best to ruin.
Do you think about that? About the celebration that will happen once he finally, mercifully is gone? I do.
But to wrap this up, my new thing is now to go through life pretending King Charles is our leader – Charles in charge, if you will. Even just writing that sentence makes me feel better.
Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.