CHARBONNEAU – When Canada’s king met the mad king

 IT WAS BIZARRE that King Charles III should address the U.S. Congress with President Trump in attendance.

 Here was a hereditary monarch lecturing Americans about democratic values; those same Americans who had rejected the monarchy in favour of a republic headed by a president.

 It was odd that America is worse off than it was under a monarchy, with democratic institutions now under attack from a wannabe king.

 Charles and the mad king could hardly be more different: Charles schooled in history and law: the former reality-show host schooled in lying and deception.

 Charles’ reference to the Magna Carta meant nothing to the orange man seated on his imaginary gold throne.

 But the Magna Carta established that the King was not above the law. It was the first time that a monarch’s personal power was subject to legal limits.

 The mad king, mesmerized by the pomp and circumstance of the moment, didn’t notice the subtle digs from Charles.

 Charles reminded Congress that NATO allies stood with America after the 9/11 attack. Dazzled by Charles’ erudition, the mad king didn’t get the message that NATO was there for the U.S. in its hour of need, and that the U.S. should not now abandon its allies.

 When Charles spoke of “safeguarding nature” as our “most precious asset” and referenced “disastrously melting ice caps,” did the beaming con-man understand that he was talking about “climate change” and “global warming” which the pompous fool labeled as a “con job”?

 The Western world was quite different when Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth II, addressed Congress in 1991 when George H.W. Bush was president. Elizabeth’s address celebrated the military alliance between the U.S. and the U.K. in expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait (Operation Desert Storm) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

 Back then, there was a strong sense of Western unity and broad bipartisan consensus in Washington back then. Queen Elizabeth was at the height of her global prestige. The British monarchy was widely seen in the U.S. as stable, dignified, and largely above controversy.

 Charles is not popular, but, like it or not, he is Canada’s constitutional head of state. Given the mad king’s designs on Canada, that’s probably a good thing.

 Charles used a blend of humour and diplomacy to remind the grasping man of Canadian sovereignty in light of the president’s insults to our prime minister and comments regarding Canada as a “51st state.”

 Despite the unpopularity of the current monarch, we are better off as a constitutional monarchy.

 In their article for the Globe and Mail titled Trump Is Not An Aberration. He Is America, Professors George Elliott Clarke and Jason Stanley quote Canadian literary critic and theorist, Northrop Frye, who said:  “A Canadian is an American who rejects the American Revolution.” They add:

 “. . . which is not to say that Canadians see themselves as subjects of a monarch, but rather that many rightly maintain historically informed worries about the threat posed to their existence by the United States, and see the Crown as a kind of protection.”

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.