Should the US return to monarchy

[Uncle Sparky]

Note: After Harry & Meagan meet with King Charles and return to America, tRump is invited for a 'visit'.
Goodbye, Donald. Well played, Charles.

[BeBMan]

They could imprison him as a false king. Trump I mean.

[Uncle Sparky]

Englandia has had 'pretenders' in the past... and tRump definately is a pretender!

[BeBMan]

Also I wasn't referring to kings specifically but to warrior-aristocrats in general--a knight who doesn't fight isn't really a knight, and the government mostly consisted of nesting sets of guys who owed military service to the guy above them. Warrior-aristocrats (of any era) do not embody anybody's idea of enlightened liberal values, which is part of the reason why reactionaries keep holding them up as an ideal.

Ok. But, y'know, there seems to be rather low concern about a possible return of military autocracy these days. Otoh, there is concern about elected officials treating their country as private property like in the glorious old days of monarchy, be it out of pure selfishness or with some political agenda behind (tho those aren't mutually exclusive).​

Again, this is a thing that happened! Not automatically, but frequently.

I don't doubt that something like this happened. But regardless how common this kind of stuff has been given that monarchy is around for lotsa centuries, way more if we include pre-BC times:

If I think why I don't want to have a old style monarchy (before those totally woke, snowflake constitutional monarchies ), what comes to my mind is that I don't want to see (mostly) unchecked power and privilege in the hands of one guy/family, with little or no chance for political participation beyond the inner circle of the monarchy, and - at best - limited individual freedom and small options to actually change things as a result.

I'm less concerned about GoT style scenarios

[nini88]

No, the US should not return to monarchy https://robertreich.substack.com/p/f...o-dictatorship

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/from-democracy-to-dictatorship

[Lorizael]

I'm less concerned about GoT style scenarios

Really think you're underestimating how often monarchies have succession crises (with attendant coups and civil wars) but still technically persist in some form. Like, if we're talking GoT, let's take a look at England's monarchy....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs

House of Wessex (886-1013)
House of Denmark (1013-1014)
House of Wessex (restored, first time) (1014-1016)
House of Denmark (restored) (1016-1042)
House of Wessex (restored, second time) (1042-1066)
House of Godwin (1066)
House of Normandy (1066-1125)
House of Blois (1135-1154)
House of Plantagenet (1154-1485)
House of Tudor (1485-1603)
House of Stuart (1603-1660)
First Interregnum (1649-1660)
House of Stuart (restored) (1660-1707)

Outside of the Plantagenets, the longest dynasty is the original House of Wessex, lasting 127 years. Compare that to the United States, which has an unbroken chain of succession of either 160 years or ~236, depending on how you want to count. And of course, that 331-year Plantagenet dynasty is hiding the Game of Thrones--the Wars of the Roses and all its precursor crises/conflicts. And there are a bunch of hidden "disputed claimants" and the like in each of those seemingly unbroken dynasties.

[Lorizael]

(Obviously I'm missing the most recent 300 years here, but (1) that's technically the UK, (2) it includes whatever you'd like to call the loss of the American colonies and all the rest of the British Empire, and (3) you get further and further into a constitutional monarchy with a figurehead monarch and real power coming from the Prime Minister, so the significance of any longevity at that point is a bit muddled.)

[BeBMan]

Ptolemaic dynasty - ca. 270 yrs IIRC I think there are way longer ones in China.

Not that I think it proves the overwhelming stability of ancient Egypt or China, but the questions is - why are the more volatile periods of medieval monarchies a better reference?

[The Mad Monk]

Chinese dynastical succession works a bit differently, maybe thanks to the ever present bureaucracy? The emperor is considered legitimate until he has a major run of bad luck, at which point he is considered to have lost "The Mandate of Heaven" and it's open season.

[The Mad Monk]

The Mandate of Heaven does not require a legitimate ruler to be of noble birth. Chinese dynasties such as the Han and Ming were founded by men of common origins, but they were seen as having succeeded because they had gained the Mandate of Heaven. Retaining the mandate is contingent on the just and able performance of the rulers and their heirs.

Corollary to the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was the right of rebellion against an unjust ruler. The Mandate of Heaven was often invoked by philosophers and scholars in China as a way to curtail the abuse of power by the ruler, in a system that had few other checks. Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that Heaven had withdrawn its mandate from the ruler. Throughout Chinese history, times of poverty and natural disasters were often taken as signs that heaven considered the incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement. The classical statement of the legitimacy of rebellion against an unjust ruler, found in the Mencius, was often edited out of that text.

The concept of the Mandate of Heaven also extends to the ruler's family having divine rights^[1] and was first used to support the rule of the kings of the Zhou dynasty to legitimize their overthrow of the earlier Shang dynasty. It was used throughout the history of China to legitimize the successful overthrow and installation of new dynasties, including by non-Han dynasties such as the Qing dynasty. The Mandate of Heaven has been called the Zhou dynasty's most important contribution to Chinese political thought,^[6] but it coexisted and interfaced with other theories of sovereign legitimacy, including abdication to the worthy and five phases theory.
​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven

[The Mad Monk]

Post unapproved, so let's try that sans quote and link. Wikipedia, btw.

The Mandate of Heaven does not require a legitimate ruler to be of noble birth. Chinese dynasties such as the Han and Ming were founded by men of common origins, but they were seen as having succeeded because they had gained the Mandate of Heaven. Retaining the mandate is contingent on the just and able performance of the rulers and their heirs.

Corollary to the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was the right of rebellion against an unjust ruler. The Mandate of Heaven was often invoked by philosophers and scholars in China as a way to curtail the abuse of power by the ruler, in a system that had few other checks. Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that Heaven had withdrawn its mandate from the ruler. Throughout Chinese history, times of poverty and natural disasters were often taken as signs that heaven considered the incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement. The classical statement of the legitimacy of rebellion against an unjust ruler, found in the Mencius, was often edited out of that text.

The concept of the Mandate of Heaven also extends to the ruler's family having divine rights[1] and was first used to support the rule of the kings of the Zhou dynasty to legitimize their overthrow of the earlier Shang dynasty. It was used throughout the history of China to legitimize the successful overthrow and installation of new dynasties, including by non-Han dynasties such as the Qing dynasty. The Mandate of Heaven has been called the Zhou dynasty's most important contribution to Chinese political thought,[6] but it coexisted and interfaced with other theories of sovereign legitimacy, including abdication to the worthy and five phases theory.
​​

[The Mad Monk]

Yep, that worked. Feel free to delete the Unapproved post.

[Lorizael]

Ptolemaic dynasty - ca. 270 yrs IIRC

The Ptolemaic dynasty was not unbroken and involved multiple assassinations, revolts, and succession disputes!

[Lorizael]

Basically every list of "and the zerbading dynasty ruled for 500 years, beginning with king splenponk the hairy" has a bunch of hidden breaks if you drill down deep. "Hmm, wait a second, why did King flerksmik III rule for 10 years, followed by a break of 6 years, followed by resuming power for 3 days?"

[Dauphin]

I wonder what will be made of Bush - Clinton - Bush - Obama - Trump - Biden - Trump in the eyes of the uninitiated.

[Uncle Sparky]

I suspect once President Vance retires, everything before Trump will be rewritten. Oklahoma is already at it.

[BeBMan]

The Ptolemaic dynasty was not unbroken and involved multiple assassinations, revolts, and succession disputes!

Trump already had two (? I think) very public, failed assassinatrions attempts, certainly one of them was very close. He wasn't pres, but running for the office. Reagan had a serious one when in office, so had other presidents. Several had various plots targetting them, and/or their family, not all on the same level of threat or sophistication.

Yes, many of those plots failed, or were foiled. ​In four cases presidents did not survive.

You may say the evildoers often had some gripe or condition, and didn't want to take the seat of the pres. Others had certainly political motivations. In any case if assassinations and plots are signs of the problems with monarchy it may be good to consider that those things are not totally unknown elsewhere.

[Lorizael]

I mean we've had actual successful presidential assassinations... but succession continued just fine. VP took office as spelled out in the constitution, elections continued. But in monarchies, assassinations were generally part of coups, where someone who wasn't supposed to be the next heir subverts the "system" and takes over. The point I'm getting at here is this idea that "oh when the king dies, the prince just becomes king, easy peasy" was not actually stable and failed very frequently.