Basic Civics for the No King Protesters

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Basic Civics for the No King Protesters

By Dan Hegelund
Oct. 24, 2025

Picture this: thousands of Americans standing in the streets, screaming that they live under tyranny. They're holding professionally printed signs. Television cameras capture every chant. Social media amplifies every accusation. Police stand by, doing nothing. And yet these protesters are absolutely convinced -- down to their bones -- that they're living under a king. Welcome to Trump Derangement Syndrome, where self-contradiction becomes performance art.

There's just one problem. If Trump were actually a king, they'd all be in jail. Every single one of them. No trial, no lawyers, no cable news coverage of their arrests. Just silence.

Real kings don't allow street protests outside their palaces. There would be no government shutdown -- because kings don't need congressional approval for budgets. And there certainly wouldn't be court case after court case with Trump deferring to Supreme Court rulings, because kings don't defer to courts.

The protesters reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of how American government was designed to work.


The Founders Weren't Naive About Power

Historically, human societies have organized around three basic political systems: dictatorship (rule by one), oligarchy (rule by few), and democracy (rule by many). Each has strengths and fatal weaknesses. Dictatorship gets things done fast but tends to end badly for everyone involved. Oligarchy provides stable expertise until the elites forget that the little people exist. Democracy sounds nice until you realize it's three wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.

The Founders studied these systems in detail. They knew that pure monarchy ended in tyranny. They knew that pure oligarchy bred corruption. They knew that pure democracy descended into mob rule. So the founders did something radical: they built a government that was all three at once. Not by accident, but by design. The Constitutional Convention spent weeks debating exactly how to balance these systems without creating either gridlock or tyranny.

The House? That's your democracy -- messy, loud, directly accountable to the mob every two years. The Senate? That's your oligarchy -- smaller, slower, supposedly wiser. And the Presidency? That's your benevolent dictator -- one person with the power to actually get things done.

This wasn't a design flaw. This was the entire point.


Why American Presidents Aren't Glorified Ribbon-Cutters

Ever wonder why the President of the United States has actual power while the President of, say, France or Germany spends most of their time hosting state dinners and looking dignified?

Because the Founders wanted someone who could act. As commander-in-chief, the president doesn't just command the military -- he's the chief executive of the entire executive branch. That means he commands not just the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, but also the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the U.S. Marshals, the National Guard when federalized, the Border Patrol, and every other federal law enforcement and intelligence agency. He decides not just which laws get enforced, but how vigorously to enforce them -- prosecutorial discretion that every president from Washington to the present has exercised.

Most Americans don't grasp the full scope of what "chief executive" actually means. It's not a ceremonial title. It's operational command of the vast federal apparatus that enforces the nation's laws, protects its borders, and maintains order. These aren't monarchical powers. They're constitutional ones, explicitly granted in Article II because the Founders knew effective governance demands swift, decisive action from a single executive.

Yes, these powers are checked by Congress and courts. But within the executive domain, the president is meant to govern with significant autonomy. That's not a bug -- it's the feature of having a unitary executive rather than a committee.

When protesters shriek about "executive overreach" every time a president uses the powers explicitly granted by Article II, they're not defending the Constitution -- they're revealing that they never understood it.


The Irony Is Delicious

Here's what makes the "No King" protests so perfectly absurd: their very existence proves they're wrong.

They're protesting in the streets without fear of arrest, prosecution, or retaliation. That's the First Amendment working.

Congress is fighting over the budget, forcing a shutdown, and the president can't override them or simply seize control of the Treasury. That's the separation of powers working.

Courts are reviewing executive actions, sometimes ruling against the president, and he has to comply with those rulings whether he likes them or not. That's judicial review working.

In other words, all the friction, tension, and chaos they're experiencing isn't the death of democracy. It's the Constitution functioning exactly as designed. The system is messy, frustrating, and slow by design -- because the founders feared concentrated power more than they feared inefficiency. Madison would be proud. Hamilton would be smiling.

The protesters think they're the Resistance. They're actually the civics class. And they're failing the exam.


Dan is founder and principal of River Tech School in Post Falls, Idaho. He holds a BS and MS in Political Science.


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from American Thinker
Link: https://www.americanthinker.com/arti...rotesters.html





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