A conservative analyst eviscerated MAGA supporters for claiming it’s impossible for Donald Trump to act like a king because he was voted into office.
“The almost cultish refusal to understand the point by Trump’s usual apologists is bizarre,” wrote longtime Never Trumper Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch. “Yes: He was lawfully and legitimately elected. But [Trump advisor] Stephen Miller’s Jacksonian-Wilsonian theory that Trump has a ‘mandate’ to do whatever he wants is anti-Constitutional hogwash.”
Here, Goldberg may be referring to Miller’s comments to CNN earlier this month, in which he claimed the president has “plenary authority”—absolute power—to deploy the National Guard to U.S. cities. An alleged technical glitch caused Miller to abruptly stop speaking without further explanation, though some believe Miller simply realized he had said too much.
“The office of the president is not endowed with [plenary authority],” former Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, district attorney Matthew Mangino explained to Newsweek. “We live in a nation that has checks and balances on power. Congress and the courts can stop a president who seeks to exceed his authority.”
Mangino added, “I can’t speculate whether Stephen Miller had a real glitch or faked it because he accidentally ‘let the cat out of the bag,’ but this administration has not been shy about grabbing power, manipulating Congress, and ignoring the courts. Call it whatever you want.”
In his post decrying those who don’t understand how a lawfully elected president can act like a king, Goldberg explained that how one wields the power of the presidency is what’s important—not simply how they got to the Oval Office.
Beyond that, he said the Constitution exists to protect democracy no matter what, and as such, it wouldn’t even matter if people voted for him to become a dictator. He still wouldn’t have the authority to be one.
“Even if Trump won an actual landslide (he didn’t), and all of the voters wanted him to exceed his authority, it wouldn’t (and certainly shouldn’t) matter,” he said. “I honestly never want to hear the faux right-wing eggheady refrain ‘we’re not a democracy, we’re a republic’ ever again from people claiming that Trump can do whatever he wants because ‘the American people voted for this.’ That is the exact opposite of republicanism ffs. It’s also not true.”
Goldberg explained that people voted for Trump for many different reasons. Some, he said, “just wanted prices lower or didn’t want Harris to be president.”
“The idea all of his voters pre-approved everything he has done or will do is more cultish nonsense,” Goldberg added. “Regardless, if the American people want a politician to violate the Constitution, that doesn’t give that politician a scintilla more right or authority to violate the Constitution. I’m used to explaining this to democracy fetishists of the left. Didn’t expect to spend the last decades of my career trying to explain it to populism fetishists of the right.”
Millions of people took to the streets for the largely peaceful No Kings protests last weekend. A wealth of concerns were voiced, including Trump’s authoritarian rule, repeated ICE raids, the loss of abortion access, and more.
Repeatedly, LGBTQ+ rights—and especially trans rights—were a key part of those protests. In Boston, 79-year-old Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) took to the stage with a trans flag wrapped around his shoulders and was met with cheers.
“We’re going to get up, we’re going to stand for the right thing, and we are going to win,” Markey said. “Because here in Massachusetts, we stand for what is right. We stand with trans people because trans rights are human rights.”
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/conservative-analyst-slams-hogwash-claim-cant-be-a-dictator-because-he-won-the-election/
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