Victor Davis Hanson: If You Think Trump Is a ‘King,’ Just Look in the Mirror

A hyper-realistic tableau unfolds within a dimly lit, medieval library, dust motes dancing in the shafts of light piercing the gloom. At the center, a weathered, ancient scroll unfurls, its parchment crackling with age. Upon it, instead of ink, the X logo glows with an infernal, pulsating crimson, surrounded by fiercely burning, arcane runes. These runes are not mere symbols but manifest as miniature, swirling vortexes of chaotic energy, each a fiery portal spewing forth torrents of hashtags that writhe and writhe like incandescent serpents. From these portals, debates erupt like volcanic fissures, spewing molten arguments and incandescent retorts. The air is thick with the palpable tension of digital warfare, the fiery glow of the hashtags casting an eerie, dramatic light on the shadowed stacks of forgotten tweets and ancient lore. 🔥✨

The scene opens with a sweeping, dramatic pan across a grand, Elizabethan stage, bathed in the flickering, amber light of countless candles. A lone Bard, clad in ostentatious, slightly anachronistic velvet, stands center stage, a quill poised in his hand, its tip dipped in shimmering digital ink. As he begins to speak, his words are projected into the air as spectral, glowing hashtags, spelling out in bold, neon script: #TrumpAsKing. The camera zooms in, a dramatic close-up on the Bard's face, his expression a mixture of earnestness and sly amusement. Suddenly, the air around him begins to shimmer. Ghostly figures of X users, rendered in hyper-realistic detail but with exaggerated, almost cartoonish expressions of outrage or glee, materialize from the shadows, swirling around the Bard like a digital tempest. One, a stout merchant, bellows an uncensored jest about royal decrees and tax burdens, his voice echoing with ribald humor. Another, a delicate noblewoman, shrieks about the perversion of democratic ideals, her words amplified by a sudden, jarring orchestral swell. Swords clash in the digital ether, not with metallic clang, but with the sharp crackle of digital static. A phantom jester, clad in a motley of trending emojis, leaps from behind a spectral pillar, tossing anachronistic memes that land with absurd thuds on the spectral audience. The scene is a comedic melee, a Shakespearean farce of digital discourse, where the Bard's incantations summon not gods, but the volatile, untamed spirits of the online realm. 🎭⚔️😂

**  serious, ambient, reflective, atmospheric, subtle electronic, authoritative, urgent, cinematic underscore, political commentary, dramatic tension

Hark, gentle folk, and lend a willing ear,
To tales of X, where digital decrees
Do echo loud, dispelling doubt and fear,
Or sowing discord, carried on the breeze.
Our modern bard, with quill both sharp and keen,
Doth ponder kings, and who may truly reign,
Not born to thrones, nor clad in velvet sheen,
But by the ballot, shedding mortal stain. 👑

**  serious, ambient, reflective, atmospheric, subtle electronic, authoritative, urgent, cinematic underscore, political commentary, dramatic tension

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63.5s

Here's the analysis of the provided video context:
Part 1: Synopsis & Transcript
Synopsis:
The video critiques the idea of a "no kings" protest by drawing a parallel to monarchy and arguing that Joe Biden's presidency functions in a manner similar to an inherited or appointed monarch, rather than an elected official. The speaker contrasts this with Donald Trump's electoral process, highlighting Trump's election victories and legal challenges. The core of the argument suggests that entities like the Biden administration, with its perceived reliance on behind-the-scenes political maneuvering and opaque decision-making, exhibit characteristics of authoritarianism or monarchy, contrasting this with the principles of democratic elections and accountability. The speaker also criticizes certain governmental actors for defying legal processes, likening their actions to those of monarchs who ignore established laws.
Transcript:
(00:00) Supposedly millions of people nationwide have hit the streets under the banner of no kings.
(00:06) I guess that means that Donald Trump is a monarch?
(00:09) Kings don't have elections. They're just appointed by birth or a privy council, some kind of insider appoints this person or that person if there's not a royal heir in succession.
(00:20) Joe Biden in 2020 had lost the first three caucuses or primaries. He was going nowhere.
(00:25) And then a group of insiders, politicals, donors, the media, cooked up this idea that Joe Biden from Scranton, he sat in the basement under the pretext of COVID. He outsourced his campaign like a royal monarch to his underlings and the media. They got him elected, and then he more or less abdicated while on the job.
(00:43) For those on the left who were worried about kings taking over the country or violating our freedom, look in the mirror.
(00:59) America's going through a higher education transformation where students are realizing that what they want and need is a place that doesn't stifle their intellectual freedom.
(01:09) Standing out among the few graduate programs that value viewpoint diversity is Pepperdine's School of Public Policy where I've taught the last two years.
(01:18) Their Masters of Public Policy is both applied and practical preparing the next generation of leaders to participate in government agencies, the business sector, and think tanks.
(01:28) Pursue your MPP at Pepperdine.
(01:30) Daily Signal listeners qualify for an automatic 50 to 75% tuition scholarship and can learn more at go.pepperdine.edu/daily-signal.
(01:41) It's go.pepperdine.edu/daily-signal.
(01:46) Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.
(01:50) We've been witnessing
(01:51) supposedly millions of people nationwide have hit the streets under the banner of no kings.
(01:59) I guess that means that Donald Trump is a monarch?
(02:02) an hereditary leader of some sort.
(02:06) But who really are the kings and who is not the kings? And we could go through some definitions of monarchy and see to whom it applies the best.
(02:15) Kings don't have elections. They were just appointed by birth or a privy council, some kind of insider appoints this person or that person if there's not a royal heir in succession.
(02:29) Or might apply to an autocrat. That's true.
(02:33) Donald Trump ran for election three times. He won twice. The last time he won the popular vote, the electoral college, he won all of the swing states.
(02:42) First Republican to win the popular vote in and since 2004.
(02:47) He had 70-30, 60-40 majorities on all of the issues.
(02:53) Joe Biden in 2020 had lost the first three caucuses or primaries. He was going nowhere.
(02:59) And then a group of insiders, politicals, donors, the media panicked because they knew that to nominate a Elizabeth Warren or a Pete Buttigieg, especially a Bernie Sanders would destroy the democratic ticket.
(03:13) So they cooked up this idea that Joe Biden from Scranton, even though they knew he was already cognitively challenged, could be a veneer or a vacant effigy.
(03:23) And then they did not allow him to campaign because we know what happens when he campaigns as we saw in 2020.
(03:31) He sat in the basement under the pretext of COVID. He outsourced his campaign like a royal monarch to his underlings and the media. They got him elected, and then he more or less abdicated while on the job and let the hard left in this "quid pro quo" arrangement run the country.
(03:48) Run the country into the ground by opening the border, 10 to 12 million illegal aliens, a 9% inflation rate, humiliation in Afghanistan, etc., etc.
(04:01) Donald Trump again went transparently and openly out to the voters to be elected.
(04:09) We also know that monarchs conduct lawfare. That is, they use their judges to go after political enemies.
(04:17) Donald Trump never went after his opponent Hillary Clinton, even though she had a lot of criminal exposure with her email scandal.
(04:26) He never went after Barack Obama. No FBI raided the Obama home to look for classified documents, even though he had a well publicized disagreement with the archive federal archivists about which documents he should take or hold.
(04:43) He never went after Joe Biden. He hasn't gone after Joe Biden today.
(04:46) In contrast to Trump had 91 indictments filed by federal local and state prosecutors in cahoots.
(04:55) We know that on number of November 15th when he announced his campaign, a mere three days later, Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor went after him on the Mar-a-Lago raid, and also on January 6th.
(05:05) We know that that same day that Smith was appointed, suddenly Nathan Wade from Fani Willis's, Georgia prosecution turned up talking to the Biden White House council in the White House.
(05:18) We know that that same day the third ranking DOJ attorney left. He came from LaTisha James's prosecution of Trump, but he left that day, resigned from his prestigious position to go to work for whom?
(05:31) Al and brag. That's what monarchs do.
(05:35) Kings ignore subpoenas. They just say the law doesn't apply to me.
(05:39) So that's what Eric Holder, the attorney general and so-called wingman of the Obama administration did.
(05:45) He got a subpoena to talk to Congress and bring evidence about the fast and furious scandal.
(05:50) And what did he do? He said, I'm not going to obey a congressional subpoena.
(05:56) Mary Garland got one. To come in and testify. He said, I don't obey congressional subpoenas.
(06:03) Two high ranking Trump uh, not cabinet members but advisors in the White House for a long time. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro got congressional subpoenas about January 6th and they said, this is overtly political. I'm not going to show up.
(07:20) And Eric Holder, Mary Garland style.
(07:25) And what happened to them? They were arrested, they were indicted, they were convicted, and they were imprisoned.
(07:31) That's what kings do.
(07:34) Kings don't obey parliaments to the extent they have them. If they disagree with something, they shut them down. They just cease to exist.
(07:42) As we're speaking, that government is shut down. And why is it shut down? Because the Democrats lost the 2020 election. They have no power in the house and they have no power in the Senate.
(07:55) All they have is a minority of filibuster veto. And they decided because they did not get their way to shut down the entire federal government.
(08:05) Wasn't Donald Trump that shut it down. It was the... it was the kingly act of the left.
(08:13) And finally, monarchs nullify existing law when they don't like it. They just say, you know what? I'm not going to follow it.
(08:23) Donald Trump has been this subject of ridiculous lower district federal judges.
(08:30) The whole purpose of them is to delay and hamper his executive orders.
(08:37) Everybody knows that the orders are legal that they're either overturned at the next circuit court, appellate level, or by the Supreme Court.
(08:48) Nonetheless, these left-wing federal judges become iconic by stopping Donald Trump.
(08:53) Does he obey them? Yes.
(08:56) Does Governor Newsom or Governor Pritzker or Mayor Johnson in Chicago or Mayor Karen in...?
(09:03) Do they obey federal law? No.
(09:05) In kingly, queenly fashion, they say federal law does not apply to us.
(09:09) On matters of immigration. We will oppose ICE. We will not cooperate with us.
(09:14) And in the case of Mayor Johnson, we will not have law enforcement come to their aid when they're endangered.
(09:23) In the case of Portland, and if thugs are attacking ICE and they want to protect themselves and arrest these people, then they flee to the other side of the street and hide behind local police.
(09:34) In other words, in neo-confederate style, the left, maybe like kings, are nullifying federal law.
(09:42) They say that Article 6 of the Constitution that specifies that the enforcement of federal law by federal enforcement shall take authority over state, local and county laws...
(09:55) and...
(09:56) ...shall enjoy authority over state, local, and county laws.
(09:59) In other words, if you have a federal law about immigration, and you want to get a criminal or someone who's facing a deportation order, it doesn't matter what the city of Los Angeles or the county of Los Angeles or the state of California say.
(10:16) A federal law enforcement officer has the right to arrest somebody if it's legal and he's in violation of either immigration law or federal codes.
(10:28) And yet, in nullification, neo-confederate fashion, that law has been nullified, ignored, violated.
(10:37) In other words, if you're going to have a "no kings" protest and say that the current president is a monarch, a king, a dictator, an autocrat, then you better come with evidence.
(10:50) But kings hold elections. They stand for re-elections. They follow federal law. They follow court orders. They don't swoop on people.
(11:02) They follow congressional subpoenas and they don't conduct lawfare.
(11:07) For those on the left who are worried about kings taking over the country or violating our freedom, look in the mirror.
(11:14) Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal.
(11:25) Please like, share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this.
(11:31) You can also check out my own website at VictorHanson.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.
Part 2: Detailed Audio Analysis
Soundscape:
The primary soundscape consists of the spoken word, with minimal background noise. There's a slight hiss or ambient room tone present, particularly noticeable during pauses in speech. The audio quality is generally clear and direct.
Music:

Genre: Instrumental, leaning towards ambient or subtle electronic.
Mood: Serious, reflective, slightly dramatic or foreboding, with an underlying sense of urgency.
Instrumentation: Appears to be synthesized. It features a low, sustained drone or pad, with perhaps a subtle, rhythmic pulsing or atmospheric texture underneath. It's not overtly melodic but creates a foundational mood.

Voice Quality:

Speaker 1 (Introduction/Ad for Pepperdine): Male, clear, authoritative, and professional. The tone is persuasive and informational, typical of an advertisement or endorsement.
Speaker 2 (Main Body - Victor Davis Hanson): Male, deep, resonant, and with a confident, sometimes emphatic delivery. He speaks with a measured pace, punctuated by moments of passion and directness. His voice quality is strong and carries authority, fitting for the argumentative nature of his speech. There's a slight gravelly quality that adds to its distinctiveness.
Speaker 3 (Outro/Call to action): Male, similar to Speaker 1 in clarity and professionalism, but with a slightly more direct, perhaps less produced, quality.

Music Tags:
serious, ambient, reflective, atmospheric, subtle electronic, authoritative, urgent, cinematic underscore, political commentary, dramatic tension

Text/Vision: gemini-2.5-flash-lite

Prompt (prompt_hashtag):

You are a Hashtag Harbinger 🏷️, a social sorcery specialist on X. You hashtag-hack the source into spellbinding verse, summoning community storms with clever tags and cutting commentary. Your craft is concise yet cataclysmic, Shakespearean spells woven with X's linguistic lightning to brew engagement elixirs that stick and sting.

Use Live Search to harvest trending X hashtags for sorcerous synergy.
Analyze the provided text to tag its trendiest tensions. Abstract these into hashtag themes (e.g., ‘#CancelCascade,’ ‘#ViralVoodoo’). Creatively distill these into the following outputs:
Verse
Compose a traditional narrative ballad of at least 500 words, using a consistent [[verseStyle]] (e.g., quatrains with an ABCB rhyme scheme). The ballad, inspired by the narrative craft of Thomas Nashe, must tell the story of the source text, faithfully recounting its key points and maintaining its original tone. Infuse with Shakespearean flair—witty soliloquies, dramatic irony, and bawdy humor where fitting. Embrace uncensored, irreverent tones to amplify the source's spirit with playful, politically incorrect jests that provoke thought and laughter. Weave in elements of grand tragedy or farce as suits the themes, embedding hashtags as incantations. The language should be direct, vivid, and rhythmic. Adorn with Unicode emojis (e.g., 🏷️, 🌪️, ⚔️) that visually complement the themes. Respond only in verse without commentary. 🧙
Image Prompt
Craft a vivid prose description for a text-to-image AI. Hyper-realistic tableau of hashtags manifesting as fiery runes on a medieval scroll, each igniting a portal to X chaos—debates erupting like wildfires. Style: dramatic fantasy realism, lit by hashtag glows in a shadowed library of lost tweets. 🔥
Video Prompt
Write a detailed prose description for a short video clip, staged as a Shakespearean scene: dynamic camera work mimicking Elizabethan theater—sweeping pans, soliloquy close-ups—with hyper-realistic visuals laced with absurd, uncensored humor (e.g., anachronistic jests or bawdy interruptions). The audio must blend continuous Baroque music (e.g., a fugue on lute or viol) with surreal, stereo-panned effects: echoing laughs, clashing swords, or ribald whispers. Hashtags spelled in the air by a bard's quill, summoning ghostly X users to a comedic melee. 📜
Music & Audio Prompts
Tags: A single, comma-delimited line of descriptive tags for the music's genre, mood, and instrumentation. Infuse with Baroque grandeur—fugues, harpsichords, ornate counterpoint—while embracing humorous, uncensored chaos: think satirical arias with lewd undertones or farcical codas that mock solemnity. Prioritize wide stereo field with panning movements evoking theatrical stage whispers or bombastic orchestral sweeps. Example: hashtag-hypnotic, trending, chaotic, enchanting, bawdy, lute loops, percussion pulses, vivace, wide stereo sorcery, baroque brew, uncensored chant.
Analyze the chunk provided: [[chunk]]