Margaret E Price:
Princess Furball attends the royal festival
adorned in her golden dress (1921)

" … deserve to ultimately be humbled by their surroundings."

Power seems an intangible entity. Nobody would suspect one possesses it until they wield it. Titles largely seem to threaten its use more than promise it. It seems too easily over-reached. It can often be breached. It can manifest as defensive or offensive. It need not be used at all. Gaining power tends to reveal more of a person than many other experiences might, for it carries a frightening capacity to buoy one's self-credulity. Anyone unprepared for a certain shock of recognition or an awe in their own presence seems likely to embarrass themselves without noticing. The true test of any influential person might be the restraint they employ. Not using power serves as the most potent use of power. In this way, power always proves paradoxical. To use it is almost the same as to abuse it, though shrinking from its legitimate uses renders it useless. So, a certain maturity seems necessary for anybody granted power. We've seen immaturity undermine otherwise powerful people. We've watched the assumption of power go to someone's head. We've seen the Trappings that inevitably accompany power catch the attention of the suddenly powerful to utterly undermine whatever their intentions might have been.

The Trappings our incumbent enjoys seem to distract him. Perhaps he mistakes the Trappings for the power. His focus seems diffuse, as if signing proclamations made stuff happen. He orders actions he possesses no authority to command, thereby undercutting his stated ends. Nothing he proclaims seems to be as he says. Nothing he does seems to possess the essential gravitas that real power imparts. He might sit on a gold-plated toilet and mistake that for his throne. This, alone, exemplifies his incumbency. He waddles from audience to audience, spouting absolute nonsense as if Presidents were supposed to do that. He threatens without an able Praetorian Guard backing him up. His cabinet secretaries demonstrate obedience but without an accompanying sense of capability. They line up like paper tigers to menacingly growl. They don't seem to know how to govern or manage a budget. Handed the keys to the kingdom, they abruptly lost them and left doors flapping open as if that was governing. Managing to spend more trying to save money than was being spent before cutting essentials does not create a convincing portrait of power or authority. Pity those unworthy of any power.

The crown was never the essence of kingly power, merely a Trapping. Care must be taken that Trappings not become the focus of any ruler's reign, for these are inevitably false gods. They serve as glittering distractions. Nor are they the possession of any ruler. They rightfully belong to the governed, even though citizens might never actually touch the least of them. They represent symbols, not actuals. They too-easily imprint themselves on even the most mature incumbent. It's heady to see everyone deferentially ceding to your every command, and even headier when folks accede without you needing even to make a command. Power corrupts like this, not usually by acts of misguided commission, but more by tacit means, small sins of ultimately malign omission. When one expects to be treated as if they were somebody special, they lose whatever rights they might have expected to come with the title. When one presumes oneself somehow superior because one's role comes with a swanky address, one mistakes Trappings for self, an insidious form of the age-old Midas touch. A golden heart beats no better than a lead one does.

During Truman's time in office, the White House was refurbished, so Harry and Bess moved across Lafayette Square to Blair House. This almost office building usually serves as a guest house for special White House visitors. This could have been seen as a comeuppance, for, believe me, Blair House was never that prestigious of an address. Harry was famous for taking neighborhood walks every morning and greeting everyone he met when passing. This was a Secret Service nightmare. Puerto Rican separatists attempted to assassinate Harry one morning, but they missed, killing a Secret Service agent and getting one of themselves killed in the process. The survivor had his sentence commuted to life without parole in an act of generosity he probably didn't deserve, and in an act of power essentially devoid of Trappings.

We have had ordinary citizens inherit the same Trappings that only seemed to inflate the already over-inflated ego of one who believed he deserved to be our king and that we deserved no better than to become his subjects. Washington was wise when he rejected the Trappings of his office, much to the disgust of emperors and kings who would never once dream of ever voluntarily forfeiting their Trappings or power, for he set the precedent that American power would not be tied to Trappings or even to kings. We would call the executive's residence The White House, not The Palace. It would primarily serve as an office building with many more offices than bedrooms. It would seem remarkably shabby when a citizen would visit, and much smaller than they'd imagined when they saw it on TV. This country will never be the sum of its Trappings—so much the worse for those who bet that it would. We're still much more of a log cabin operation than a princely one, and those mistaking the power we bestow upon our leaders for anything other than humbling deserve to ultimately be humbled by their surroundings.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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