Naked King: The Death of Institutions

We have always needed an idol that would later become a god and sit above us. For millennia, this was exactly how we justified our banal, aggressive nature. When Octavian ended the Roman Republic, the people themselves demanded his deification. A violent, centralized system always requires supreme legitimacy. We have always preferred to believe that the source of power is divine, simply because taking responsibility for ourselves is too heavy a burden.

We naively assume that democracy ended this toxic tradition. In reality, we just changed the terminology. After the death of monarchs, this morbid craving for the sacred didn’t disappear. On the contrary, it found its most grandiose and grotesque secular form in the institution of the President of the United States. And if anyone deserves the lion’s share of the blame for creating this idol, it isn't a dictator, but democracy’s most untouchable saint—Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Modern political religion strictly forbids criticizing him, yet he was the one who began the systematic disregard of institutions. He tried to monopolize the Supreme Court; he set the precedent that in times of crisis, the president stands above the law. And most importantly, by usurping the throne for four terms, he shattered the historical tradition set by George Washington.

"They knew exactly what kind of monster they had created, and they were afraid. Yet, we swept this fear under the rug and turned the 'imperial presidency' into an idol."

This fact so terrified anyone with a shred of foresight that a panicked system hastily passed the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. They knew exactly what kind of monster they had created, and they were afraid. Yet, we swept this fear under the rug and turned the "imperial presidency" into an idol, because society still needed a god.

But history has one ruthless law: when you build a throne for a saint and arm it with absolute power, sooner or later, a villain or a clown will inevitably sit on it. The political elite made a fatal miscalculation when they assumed society would silently accept this state expansion and their own powerlessness. Yes, society grew accustomed to and accepted obedience, but they failed to foresee one crucial thing: excessive obedience to power does not breed peace; it awakens the oldest and most dangerous instincts. When you strip an individual of control over their own life, the accumulated frustration inevitably finds an outlet in the hatred of the "other." The rise of xenophobia and the triumph of aggressive populists in an obedient society is just as logical and inevitable a consequence as the fact that Trump would eventually ascend the institutionally decayed throne Roosevelt left behind

Then he came along, and the idol was shattered once and for all. The desacralization of the presidency isn't happening because he throws tantrums on Twitter or boasts about his own greatness. That’s just a cheap show. The king is stripped naked when he openly attacks federal judges for a lack of personal loyalty; when he assaults the Federal Reserve because an independent economic institution won't bow to his political whims; and when he turns the global order into his personal reality TV show.

"When a head of state views following the law and refraining from corruption not as a supreme duty, but as a personal favor that demands gratitude—the institution is already dying."

One of the most cynical myths of his first term was his so-called "financial sacrifice." The president constantly whined that being in the Oval Office cost him money, that he didn’t let his entourage get rich, and that no one even thanked him for it. When a head of state views following the law and refraining from corruption not as a supreme duty, but as a personal favor that demands gratitude—the institution is already dying.

That past whining about losses was a complete farce: he and his family monetized the presidency perfectly. But if in his first term this manifested in hotel bookings and foreign transactions, today the mask is completely off. When, exactly 15 minutes before the president announces a delay in striking Iran’s energy sector, someone opens hundreds of millions of dollars in positions on the oil market—that is no longer just corruption. It means the authority of the Commander-in-Chief and the questions of war and peace have been turned into a personal terminal for insider trading.

In the past, when the executive branch crossed the line, the system found the strength to balance itself. Today, out of sheer inertia, we wait for Congress to initiate this secular reformation—the very institution that is supposed to curtail the king's powers. But here we face the most tragic reality: the "king's" nakedness has exposed the nakedness of the entire court.

On Capitol Hill today, we don't find a conduit of the people's will, but a paralyzed, completely impotent structure. On one side, we see a disorganized, confused political elite that has lost the ability to resist; on the other—a force that has voluntarily become an obedient, spineless appendage of the sitting president. Congress no longer has the desire, nor the ability, to fix anything.

"Until we realize that the current, centralized political system has exhausted itself, we will simply continue swapping one naked idol for another."

So, where is the way out? Perhaps it lies exactly in finally saying goodbye to the illusion that this political machine will heal itself. When the institution of the presidency is privatized, and Congress has capitulated, hoping to fix the system from within or waiting for the next election is pure self-deception. We stand at a point where institutional nakedness is universal. And until we realize that the current, centralized political system has exhausted itself, we will simply continue swapping one naked idol for another.