One of the most widely spread fallacies among Americans is the belief that their “patriot” forebears saw George III of Great Britain and Ireland as a “tyrant”, and that he was thus the primary target of colonial American ire.

This is simply not true.  The majority of American “patriots” or “rebels” (depending on one’s viewpoint) had no bone to pick with George III, nor did they see him as a tyrant.  As British subjects, Americans were well aware that Great Britain was a constitutional monarchy, not a tyrannical dictatorship.

Legislative power was largely in the hands of the British parliament, which consisted of hereditary lords and elected representatives from various constituencies.

People in British America were not treated as a normal “constituency”, able to send elected representatives to the parliament in London.

Colonies like those in North America or Barbados were treated as separate, special types of jurisdiction, subject to governors or laws passed by the British parliament (think of Puerto Rico’s current status in relation to the USA, and you get the idea).

A large percentage of (but by no means all) American colonials were outraged that parliament could pass laws affecting Americans, while giving Americans no direct representation in said parliament.

Most American grievances had to do with money.

The British had just financed an extremely expensive war on multiple fronts on both land and sea, from Europe to the Pacific, during the 1750s.  The local theater of that war which was fought in North America had essentially protected and preserved the emerging “American way of life” from French encroachment.

When the British parliament attempted to claw back some of the costs of this war through various mercantilist tariffs, taxes, and other acts, the Americans – who had become used to free-wheeling trade, widespread smuggling, and an extremely low tax burden – didn’t like it one bit.

The whole Boston Tea Party thing was about Britain trying to raise taxes by ensuring that her colonies purchased things like tea through British mercantilist channels such as the East India Company.

It cannot be stressed enough that America was a nation of smugglers and smuggling.  American ships from the eastern seaboard were making fortunes through illicit trade with non-British colonial powers in the Caribbean and South America, much to the detriment of the British Exchequer.

Americans (especially smugglers) had always hated paying taxes, but they hated tax laws even more when they got no direct say in their drafting and implementation.

Add to this the Proclamation of 1763 prohibiting American colonials from settling Indian lands to the west, and we have a rebellion on our hands.

The American War for Independence was always, first and foremost, about land and money, and secondly about direct representation.

It had almost nothing whatsoever to do with anti-monarchy sentiment or any sense that George III was a brutal tyrant.

All of the freedom and liberty stuff was a coat of shiny varnish used by Enlightenment intellectuals to add extra justification for their actions.

If the newly independent USA had hated kings or monarchs that much, Alexander Hamilton wouldn’t have invited Prince Henry of Prussia to lead a British-style constitutional monarchy in America in 1786.

Prince Henry declined in the end, and a non-monarchical US Constitution was written.

Luckily for generations of later Americans, their first President, George Washington, had no interest in being a king, either.

But the offer WAS there. Hamilton wanted Washington to remain “President for Life“.  John Adams wanted him to be referred to as “Your Majesty“.

A major problem did, however, survive.

Unable to envisage a truly modern nation without something like a king at its head, and almost snobbishly unwilling to place complete power in the hands of a poorly-educated electorate, the “founding fathers” created things like The Senate and Electoral College.

But most of all, and to our great and terrible detriment today, they placed huge executive power in the Office of the Presidency.

*****

Up until the emergence of Trump in US politics in 2015 or thereabouts, it was mostly unspoken but largely understood and agreed that over the course of the past 240 years or so, the USA had chosen the path of democracy, with Congress representing the will of the people, subject to a judiciary which would test all legislation against the rights and ideals laid down in the US Constitution.

Taking their cue from Washington’s choice to step down after 8 years in office, subsequent US Presidents saw their job as “presiding” over Congress, and exercising such emergency powers as deemed necessary to avoid long delays in Congress which might endanger national security.

Up until today, societal norms, traditions, and overwhelming legal precedent have been the guide to how a President should exercise such executive powers.

On 6 Nov 2024, 240 years after Prince Henry declined the offer to be king of the USA, just under 50% of American voters decided that they do, in fact, want a king.

What’s more, they want a king who, unlike George III or Prince Henry of Prussia, has no sense of “noblesse oblige“, a king who, unlike George III or Prince Henry of Prussia, WOULD be a tyrant.

In a 2020 Oval Office exchange, Trump said to a reporter “I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about”.

One of those powers is the authority to shut down radio, television, cable and cellphone networks, AND THE INTERNET.

According to the Brookings Institute:

“An obscure provision tucked at the back of the Communications Act (Sec.706, codified as 47 USC 606) empowers the president to ’cause the closing of any station for radio communications’ (such as broadcasting or mobile phone networks) as well as ’cause the closing of any facility or station for wire communications’ (such as telephone and internet networks). All that is necessary for the exercise of these huge powers is a ‘proclamation by the President’ of ‘national emergency’ in the case of broadcast stations and mobile phones, or the ‘interest of the national security’ for the internet or telephone networks. The statute also gives the president the power to suspend or amend FCC regulations…”

A Congressional Research Service report from 2021 concluded, “In the American governmental experience, the exercise of emergency powers has been somewhat dependent on the Chief Executive’s view of the presidential office.”

A 2010 U.S. Senate report on cybersecurity observed, “The Committee understands that Section 706 gives the President the authority to take over wire communications in the United States and, if the President so chooses, shut a network down.”

With Melania Trump relinquishing her place in the limelight lately, Elon Musk appears to have stepped into the First Lady role.

I invite everyone reading this to consider the possibility that Trump or Vance might invoke Section 706 of the Communications Act.

What does every authoritarian desire most of all?  Control of communications.

What does First Lady-in-waiting Musk have that any authoritarian would kill for?

A fully-operational satellite-based internet and communications system called Starlink.

I hope for all our sakes I’m just an old paranoid fool.