Nathan D. Hitchen argues that many of our fellow Americans misunderstand Independence Day. Rather than a rejection of Old World forms of government, Hitchen contends, the United States is a constitutional monarchy with behind a veneer of republican government.
After the failure of the Articles of Confederation, according to Hitchen, the Framers designed a constitution that effectively restored the arrangement among the colonies prior to British parliamentary interference during the 1770s. Although the Constitution rejects titles of nobility and other hierarchical trappings, the results looks surprisingly like what John Adams called โa monarchical republic.โ After all, the president is the โunifying figureโ who rules as โboth head of state and head of government.โ True, Congress legislates, but presidential administration of the laws across all states equally โreplicates the imperial federationโ of equal states as the king had equal British dominions.
There is much to recommend this analysis, which historian of ideas Eric Nelson brought to readersโ attention in a controversial 2015 book. But only when speaking about institutional design. It seems right to say that the American president can behave similarly to the constitutionally constrained yet still powerful post-Glorious Revolution British king.
Nevertheless, there is more to the presidency than this generous grant of powers. To preserve elements of monarchy in a constitutional order is not the same as preserving monarchy in political culture. The presidency is indeed something of a โtamed prince,โ as Harvey Mansfield famously argued. Yet the political style of the presidencyโand of American politics more generallyโdepends on successful use of republican themes.
What is political style? According to Robert Hariman, it is โa coherent repertoire of rhetorical conventions depending on aesthetic reactions for political effect.โ In other words, political style refers to the aesthetic conventions that define the legitimate use of authority. For example, in the early years of the American republic, candidates for the presidency did not campaign themselves. The reason was that voters would likely find public demonstrations of such ambition unseemly. Few were fooled into thinking that candidates were motivated purely by a desire for public service, but deference at least to the norm demonstrated a candidateโs recognition of voter concerns about an overly ambitious president.
Because the extent of power depends partly on the way itโs justified, we should avoid referring to โmere rhetoricโ versus that of โreal authority.โ Indeed, politics always features an aesthetic element that reveals something about the nature and purpose of political authority. Political style is not ornamental to authority; it is essential. And a purely or even primarily monarchical presidency would never have succeeded in realizing the latent powers of the executive branch. Instead, American politics reflects a paradox: the presidents who come closest to being kings are those who appeal most successfully to the people.
The Courtly Style and Luluโs Incontinence
Hariman identifies four political styles: realist, courtly, republican, and bureaucratic. This essay only needs to examine the courtly and republican styles. The courtly style is โcentered on the body of the sovereign, displaces speech with gesture, culminates in immobility,โ and โseems to be particularly resurgent within mass media representations of political events.โ The courtly style corresponds to monarchy, as the sovereign is both the person wearing the crown and how that person represents the rest of the realm, what we now refer to as โthe kingโs two bodies.โ Therefore, the greater proximity to the monarch demonstrates to onlookers greater access to political authority. Moreover, the closer one gets to the sovereign, the more intense the competition. Hence, every royal gesture became the subject of intense scrutiny among the courtiers seeking the crownโs favor. Monarchs know this, of course, and can use it to their advantage. The more secure the monarchโs position, the more they can use proximity to subdue courtiers. Even so, a king must offer favors routinely to ensure that the courtiers look to him rather than to each other in a potential coup dโรฉtat.
Drawing from work by Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuลciลski, Hariman depicts courtly politics in a way that is quite foreign to most Americans, in the account of the last Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie I, his dog Lulu, and a servant I will call the โpee lackey.โ During the many courtly ceremonies, Lulu was allowed to move freely among the courtiers and frequently urinated on their feet. The emperor charged the โpee lackeyโ to clean the shoes of courtiers with satin cloth, but protocol forbade courtiers from protesting or even taking notice of Luluโs urination. Just as Lulu marked the courtiers with his urine, so did the emperor mark them as inferiors to the emperor. The mark of inferiority also required proximity to the emperor. Hence, while such a marking illustrated royal submission, it also elevated them over those not so lucky to have Luluโs mark dripping down their ankles. Courtly politics was, thus, a politics of the bodyโthe emperorโs person, the courtiersโ feet, and of course Luluโs urinary tract. Hariman draws from Kapuลciลskiโs text detailing the courtly politics of the body. The ear of the emperor was the prize for courtiers seeking to speak to the emperorโs many hallways, and the eye of the emperor was the way to catch the emperorโs notice during morning strolls through palace gardens. To reek of dog urine meant that one had endured ritual humiliation but also remained close enough to the emperor to endure it. It was, in short, the scent of authority.
The Republican Style as a Verbal Fistfight
By contrast, the republican style โdevelops a model or oratorical virtuosity for public performance in a parliamentary cultureโ and โincludes an appreciate of verbal technique, a norm of consensus, the embodiment of civic virtue, and a doctrine of civility.โ The republican style corresponds to popular governments. When Americans today learn that their ancestors used to sit and listen to speeches for hours, they often whisper a prayer of thanksgiving for the invention of the smartphone. However, these ancestors had a more developed appreciation of public speaking. This appreciation was not like the aristocratic Viennese concertgoers attending a Franz Schubert performance, but more like MMA fans of Ilia Topuria fighting Charles Oliviera for the UFC Lightweight Championship. After all, these ancestral Americans attended their own meetings and gave their own speeches in a kind of amateur league that might produce, over time, someone like Daniel Webster or Theodore Roosevelt. Watching figures of that ability compete was why in 1858 so many in Illinois flocked to the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas over a Senate election not one of them could cast a vote in, since state legislatures still chose members of the upper house of Congress.
Hariman looks back at the life and work of the Roman orator Cicero to describe the republican style, and he looks to Ciceroโs life as one of competition with other great speakers attempting to win over public opinion. Not only are the orators like fighters, the fights are also โstaged,โ in that they take place on a stage and demand from the speakers โthe social practice of public debate and the performative ideals of the art of oratoryโ that makes the republican style โaesthetic, and so experienced rather than avowed.โ The fighters fight with words, but the words are not purely demagogic. They reflect a vision of the public good the speaker advocates in the hope of persuading the audience.
To that end, unlike the courtly style, republican gestures are not the mode of a sovereign expressing approval or disapproval but part of the performance of gladiators in parliamentary combat. There is, in fact, an entire strategy behind the rhetoric of using oneโs hands. The need for such a strategy seems ridiculous until, like Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, all eyes are on him, and he confesses to the crowd, โI donโt know what to do with my hands.โ Failure to use the gesture correctly can turn away public opinion, and that is sure defeat.
In republican debate, sometimes the better ideas have the worse speaker, and public opinion can regrettably turn away from those ideas. โSince the republic is constituted in discourse,โ Hariman explains, โpublic speech becomes defined, on the one hand, by persistent attention to ethos, and, on the other hand, by obsessive consideration of the audience.โ This dilemma has driven competitors to hone their skills in public debate, which led to the kind of virtuoso performances that Americans hoped to witness when attending debates. The stakes were high, not just because they were fans of the fighters but also because of what they stood for.
Public Opinion and Presidential Power
The American presidency demands both a courtly style and a republican style, and the current president, Donald J. Trump, truly exemplifies as much. The unitary executive creates a final arbiter who wields monopoly authority over the administration of the laws, and this condition creates a courtly politics immediately around the president. Trump has proved keenly aware of this and willing to use it.
Examples abound. Trump enjoys attending events held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship, whose president Dana White is personally friends with him and even introduced Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention. Trump always attends with an entourage of Washington courtiers like podcaster Tucker Carlson, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. These and other figures constantly engage in a press-mediated demonstration of their support for Trump that they hope will earn them greater proximity to him and his sympathy to their positions.
By no means, though, did Trump create the courtly politics within the White House. After all, perhaps no president was better suited to using his body than Lyndon B. Johnson, who liked to use his height to lean over people he wished to persuade. Failing that, he sometimes exposed his genitals. Perhaps some wanted Johnsonโs eye or his ear, but a select few beheld more of the presidentโs body than they ever wanted. Johnson was also not the only president to transform his administration into a kind of court. Admirers described John F. Kennedyโs White House as โCamelotโ and competed desperately for invitations to social events and other favors.
Despite this, this courtly style operates within the very limited range of the White House and only when a president has the time and popularity to command it. Time is always scarce, especially with term limits, and popularity is the province not of courtliness but of republicanism. What powers the courtly politics of Trumpโs White House today is his perceived popularity, and that popularity stems from his republican style. For all the talk of โNo Kingsโ America endured recently, Trumpโs public performance could not be more republican.
Some conservatives might turn up their nose at his speeches, given how much they depart from the heights achieved by greats like Martin Luther King Jr. or Ronald Reagan, but Trumpโs style is very effective. It is that of the stereotypical post-war New Yorker, the kind who complains to a fast-moving Yellow Cab, โAyyy, Iโm walkinโ here!โ or orders a โcuppa cawfee.โ His composition, language, and pronunciation are a curious mix of Staten Island โwhite ethnicsโ and Jewish Catskill comics. The gestalt contrasts helpfully with his ostentatious taste for gilded ceiling finishes and Brioni suits. Trump even has his gestures down. He likes to use his hands to pinch pieces of something he is building in front of his midsection until he turns the back of his hand to the audience and sweeps his hand across his chest to knock his imaginary building over, at which point he brings the same hand palm down on top of the destroyed edifice to clear the way for something new to build.
The affectation has always been effective enough to earn Trump attention, but he has not always had the best message for the people, hence why he lost in 2020 against a candidate, Joe Biden, who took advantage of COVID restrictions to run a front porch campaign. An effective aesthetic is necessary but never sufficient; one must also have a vision of the public good that resonates with the audience. He won in 2024 because he ran against not one but two candidates whose vision of the public good was as incoherent as their public speaking, with Biden unable to compose his sentences (โAnd by the way, used to make beer brew here is used to makeโฆ brew beer to find theโฆ oh Earth Rider thanks for the Great Lakesโ) and Kamala Harris leaving audiences wondering if she ever would (โSo, I think itโs very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders, for us at every moment in time โ and certainly this one โ to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the futureโ).
What does all this have to do with monarchs, British or otherwise? Certainly, Trump has been aggressive in claiming powers that resemble, or even exceed, those of eighteen-century kings. Yet he does not do so on the basis of hereditary right or personal virtue, as classical theories of monarchy would suggest. Instead, he uses the republican style to build up enough popularity to create an imperial presidency. This fusion of institution and style, forms, and informality is the key to the remarkable power and duration of the presidency. Although it drew on British examples and experiences, it is an American innovation that can achieve many aims of monarchy, not despite, but because it renounces many trappings of kingship.
That includes the source of its authority, which Americans have always insisted lies with the people. Unlike a king, a president is only as powerful as he is popular. In the absence of such popularity, a president can do or say whatever he or she wants without anyone taking notice. After all, does anyone even remember that Biden this past January pronounced the Equal Rights Amendment as ratified to the Constitution? By then, even his courtiers had fled. No kings indeed.
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