That date this year will mark the 250^th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence – as every educated American knows. That is, apart from today’s American President; who has a copy of it hanging in his Oval Office, but seems entirely ignorant of what it means. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrIw2tmzMFE.)

This now seems ironic, in view of Trump’s current one-man rule – by ‘executive order’ – which transgresses so many of the principles we have learned to associate with American constitutional democracy; with the object – in effect – of returning the country to the pre-1776 age of ‘Kings’. (Actually George III wasn’t a ‘king’ in this sense. But let that pass.) This is what all the impressive anti-Trump – ‘No Kings’ – demonstrations going on in the US just now are warning of, and with good reason. Trump’s undermining of Congress, the Judiciary, universities, the armed forces, the history taught in schools, America’s immigration rules (remember ‘send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’?!), even ‘truth’ itself, and now her electoral practices (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/us/politics/trump-mail-in-ballots-voting-executive-order.html) – are clearly heading the country in an authoritarian, almost Orwellian, direction; often by quasi-fascistic means.

When (or if?) King Charles III visits the USA later this year – the date chosen, I imagine, in recognition of the anniversary – most of his ‘subjects’ in Britain and the Commonwealth are hoping that he will refer to this significant counter-revolution that Trump is currently effecting in American policy and identity, at least as critically as the conventions of diplomacy allow.