The following expression is pretty well-known: "The Royal We." Click that link and you will be directed to a Wikipedia entry, explaining both the origin and meaning of this singularly "plural" construction for a term meant to refer to a single individual.
An article in the February 18, 2026, edition of The New York Times made me think about that "Royal We." The article, by Patricia Cohen, was titled as follows: "Neoroyalism: What It Says About Trump." I am assured that no paywall will prevent you from reading the article, if you click on that link.
We all do know (and that Time Magazine cover, above, helps remind us, should we be tempted to forget) that our current president is fond of postulating that his election as President of the United States is akin to, or equivalent to, his being crowned as "King" of our country. The fact that our country doesn't have "Kings," and was founded, in fact, after a war fought to eliminate any future royal claim, has never really registered with the current occupant of the oval office. As defined by the Constitution, the "president" is, actually, a kind of "functionary," who is charged with taking orders from, and carrying out the decisions of the Congress. The "Executive" executes laws that are drawn up by others. The president, emphatically, does not issue "Orders" telling everyone else what to do.
That's the system as established in the Constitution, at least, but our current president chafes under the constraints that the Constitution imposes. We do need to remind him - and (even more importantly) ourselves - that we don't got no "Kings" in this here country.
The Times' story focuses on one of the prerogatives of kingship that ought not be overlooked, namely, the claim made by monarchs that the nation over which they preside essentially belongs to them as their own, personal "property." What the Cohen article points out is that our current president does seem to think that he is, in fact, entitled to act as the "owner" of everything that is actually "owned" by all of us.
The East Wing of the White House comes to mind, doesn't it? Well, read that article. There are a number of specifics that should be convincing that our current president has profoundly misunderstood his role in the world, and in our nation, in particular. His parasitic and pathological narcissism is undoubtedly the (or a major) "cause" of our president's confusion about his role in our government, and about his "property" claims.
What about our confusion?
"We, the people," don't got no kings around here. The current occupant of our presidential office (yes, that office belongs to "us," the way we have structured our government) is just a "He," not a "We," and all claims to any kind of royal treatment need to be most emphatically denied.
Mr. Trump's claims and assertions about his presidential prerogativess need to be rejected out of hand. He's a "He," not a "We," and we'd better start making that extremely clear to that upstart among us!
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