In a brief 19-second video shared on social media, a US fighter jet branded with the phrase ‘King Trump’ takes to the skies, piloted by a crown-adorned US President. The video features the jet releasing what looks like waste over a group of protesters demonstrating against Trump.

Another clip shows Trump donning a crown, sword, and ceremonial robe while a rock anthem plays, chanting ‘Hail to the King.’ Prominent Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, are seen bowing before him.

These videos are examples of the playful satire commonly produced through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and frequently seen on social media.

However, what sets these clips apart is that they were shared by none other than the President and Vice-President of the United States. Their release coincided with a day when nearly seven million Americans participated in ‘No Kings’ rallies, protesting Trump’s authoritarian actions.

The timing is striking, especially considering it follows a YouGov poll revealing that most Americans now suspect Trump harbors ambitions of kingship—a notion he coyly avoids denying.

A larger segment of the population firmly opposes such aspirations, despite widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of US democracy. Meanwhile, the federal government remains in a shutdown due to ongoing budget disagreements between Republicans and Democrats.

The King Trump videos haven’t been the only examples of the President not only comparing himself to a king but even appearing to flirt with the idea of monarchy. 

In February, the White House posted a mocked-up Time magazine cover on social media. Headlined ‘Long Live The King’, it showed a grinning Trump standing in front of the New York skyline wearing, yes, a crown.

Air farce one: Crown-wearing Trump at controls of fighter jet in his AI-generated video

The AI generated video shows President Trump piloting a fighter jet with “KING TRUMP” on the side and dumping what seems to be excrement on a crowd of anti-Trump protesters below to the song “Danger Zone”

So when, yesterday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung presented him with the replica of a golden crown worn by an ancient Korean ruler, there was some surprise he didn’t immediately insist on trying it on.

Trump’s insouciance at being accused of behaving like a king is all the more shocking given America’s intense pride at being the first democratic republic in the modern world.

US voters might lap up episodes of The Crown and the latest palace gossip but, since 1776, ‘king’ has been a dirty word in America’s political lexicon.

Hamilton, the wildly popular rap musical about Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, is back on Broadway and for the millions who go to watch, one of the great pleasures is the chance to boo and hiss at King George III, unfairly depicted as the show’s sneering pantomime villain.

Trump, say his critics, is behaving much like the Hanoverian king, claiming vast powers at the expense of other branches of government, often on the grounds of distinctly dubious ’emergencies’.

The President has been sending troops into US cities (just as George’s government did 250 years ago) to fight crime while imposing sweeping and arbitrary global tariffs.

Here again there are echoes of George III, who was accused of arbitrarily taxing the colonists –although at least his government had the legal right to do so while the US Constitution gives Congress, not the President, the power to set tariffs. 

Trump has been deporting non-citizens without due process under a law dating back to 1798, dispatching his ICE immigration police – who opponents say are alarmingly unaccountable – to seize undocumented migrants from the streets. Many of them have been pursuing quiet, law-abiding lives in the US for decades.

In February, the White House posted a mocked-up Time magazine cover on social media. Headlined ‘Long Live The King’, it showed a grinning Trump standing in front of the New York skyline wearing a crown

The King Trump videos haven’t been the only examples of the President not only comparing himself to a king but even appearing to flirt with the idea of monarchy

As for his opponents, Trump has exerted such tight control over the Department of Justice (DoJ), he has turned it into what critics have dubbed the Department of Revenge. 

Former FBI director James Comey and New York prosecutor Letitia James have both displeased the President in the past and both have now been indicted by federal grand juries.

It is just a few days since Trump demanded the DoJ pay him $230 million in compensation for federal investigations previously launched against him.

Meanwhile, the man who claimed he was ‘saved by God to make America great again’ – an echo of the divine right of kings – has been using the President’s right to issue pardons (perhaps the most kingly of his powers) with abandon. 

Opponents say Trump and his acolytes are doing all they can to avoid the checks and balances that were written in to the US constitution to limit presidential power.

Trump’s lawyers have been stonewalling the courts when they try to enforce the law. As for the Supreme Court – supposedly the ultimate legal check on his powers – well, that’s dominated by conservatives.

If all of the above doesn’t settle the argument that Trump is behaving like an absolute ruler, say critics, then look at his behaviour as family patriarch.

Trump and his family – who even have their own ‘court’ at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Florida – have rewarded their financial backers with plum jobs for which they’re wildly unsuited. They have also profited by investing in businesses – such as cryptocurrencies – over which Trump now has a large degree of control.

The regal image is hammered home by Trump’s delight in grandeur and royal pageantry (which he inherited from his Scottish, Queen-loving mum) and his tacky gilding of the interior of the White House, where demolition teams have smashed through much of the East Wing to make room for Trump’s planned £157 million, 90,000 sq ft ballroom.

As ever, the style has been compared to that of Trump’s favourite Palace of Versailles, presided over by the original ‘Sun King’, Louis XIV.

What does His Majesty have to say? Trump insists he is not a monarch and is not trying to behave like one. ‘I don’t feel like a king,’ he said in June. ‘I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.’

His opponents aren’t convinced. Some of the more pessimistic ones wonder whether the Trump administration isn’t trying – maybe only light-heartedly at first – to put the idea out there that perhaps it might not be such a bad idea if he did become a king.

From a Republican point of view, it would certainly settle the problem of finding a successor to Trump, who is constitutionally limited to serving only two presidential terms although, along with former adviser and MAGA-ultra Steve Bannon, he is now teasing – with increasingly less levity – that he should ignore that supposedly iron rule, too.

MAGA world has long dreamed of a Trump dynasty that could rule the US for decades (with speculation first focusing on daughter Ivanka before switching to youngest son Barron).

If only fellow Americans didn’t get themselves so worked up about kings and queens, they complain. Some claim, moreover, that hostility towards autocratic rule is actually loosening.

Fringe organisations such as Monarchists Of America and the United Monarchist Party Of America say they are attracting growing interest from young Americans who have given up on democracy.

Recent polling of attitudes among Gen Z voters bears out this seemingly bizarre claim.

A 2023 YouGov poll of 18 to 29-year-olds in the US found 27 per cent would like to have a monarch (compared to less than one per cent of over-65s).

Bear in mind that these new monarchists admit that most supporters don’t actually want the Trumps as America’s first Royal Family.

Meanwhile, Trump faces a Supreme Court hearing about the legality of his tariffs that might put a significant block on his autocratic behaviour. The allegation is that the 47th President has exceeded his powers.

The hearing starts on November 5, which – as anyone who knows about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot will appreciate – is hardly the most propitious day in the calendar for would-be kings.