After Donald Trump defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by roughly 1.5 percent in the popular vote in the United States' 2024 presidential race, many far-right white evangelical Christian fundamentalists didn't view the outcome as Trump narrowly winning a close election. Instead, they declared that Trump had a divine "mandate" from God Almighty Himself.

But Trump's critics — from Democrats to right-wing Never Trump conservatives — reminded Christian nationalists and MAGA Republicans that the U.S. Constitution vehemently rejects the "divine right of kings" concept. July 4, 1776, they stressed, was a total rejection of monarchy, not an endorsement of it.

In an op-ed published on March 17, journalist Marcie Bianco (author of the 2023 book Breaking Free: The Lie of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom) emphasizes that Trump has a radically different view of the presidency than Presidents Barack Obama, Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman. While Obama, Roosevelt and Truman described themselves as "public servants," Bianco writes, Trump sees himself as a "monarch ordained by a god."

"From using the White House's South Lawn to shill cars for his biggest campaign donor to demanding taxpayer-funded ads that claim he victoriously closed the southern border," Bianco observes, "President Donald Trump is demonstrating that, as he stated in his first term, he has 'the right to do whatever I want.' That's his twisted interpretation of Article 2 of the Constitution, which describes the power of the president."

Bianco continues, "Yet the president of the United States is not a king. He’s not a monarch ordained by a god….. As mass protests against the Trump Administration take place across the nation, let us remember the historical role and responsibility of the president and what others who've held the office have had to say about the responsibility that comes with the position."

The journalist/author notes that in a May 1918 op-ed for the Kansas City Star, Roosevelt wrote, "The president is merely the most important among a large number of public servants." And in July 1954, Truman said, "I would much rather be an honorable public servant and known as such than to be the richest man in the world."

Then, in a November 2020 appearance on CBS News' 60 Minutes, Obama described the president of the United States' as a "public servant" who needed to represent the public's interest, not their own.

"We, the American people, are responsible to each other to secure the health of our democracy," Bianco argues. "This means we must elect to office presidents who are committed to public service, and if we fail at that, then we must use our First Amendment rights to protest against them."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet