Amid ongoing public alarm over whether or not Trump—in his push to expand executive power in unprecedented ways—might at some point simply refuse to comply with federal court orders and cause a constitutional crisis, it can't be a good sign that Trump chose to post a comment on social media today saying—in effect—that he views himself as above the law.
My first thought, when I read the comment, was that it sounded like Carl Schmitt for Dummies. Trump was invoking an inchoate version of the Nazi theorist's concept of the "state of exception." And it should not be lost on us that several figures in Trump's orbit—including the Vice President—have been influenced by Schmitt in their ideological development.
But apparently, the quote comes from a line sometimes attributed to Napoleon. Which is not a great deal more reassuring. Napoleon also, of course, appointed himself emperor. He declared, in effect, that he was a dictator unbound by democratic decision-making. So it's hardly a good sign that the president appears to want to invoke him—especially given that Trump has tried to stage a coup in the past.
And so, since Trump apparently now sees himself as a kind of Napoleon—all I can do is repeat Percy Bysshe Shelley's apt verdict on France's emperor. I find it applies just as strongly to our would-be American autocrat today: "I hated thee," wrote the poet of Napoleon; "I did groan/ To think that a most unambitious slave/ Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave/ Of Liberty."
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