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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   20267 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025

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Trump is too old for this to be serious. I don’t understand what sort of play Bannon is making, maybe just trying to get himself back in the news if nothing else.

It's bizarre to advocate for an 80 year old man with three and a half grown sons to run for a third term. If Trump were a monarch, any reasonable monarchist would be advocating for him to abdicate and retire in favor of one of his children.

Back when ruling monarchs were a thing, abdicating in your old age was the exception and not the rule - remember that the King was anointed by God. If the King and heir were aligned, then the heir gradually took over more responsibility as the King declined. If the King and heir were opposed, then you got Biden-style scenarios where the King's courtiers tried to conceal the decline to prevent authority leaking to the heir and his courtiers.

[Old age abdication was common for Japanese Emperors, but they were never ruling monarchs]

Sure but that's not modernity. Life and healthspans were different, expectations of the ruler were different. Were King Donald a modern king and I a modern monarchist, I would advocate for his abdication, or at least for stepping back in favor of the heir. Fwiw, I think Charles should do the same, you don't want to end up with a long run of men who wait a lifetime to be king. I'm not sure monarchy really works without early and violent deaths intervening on occasion, you wind up with gerontocracy.

We see this very pattern in our best example of a ruling monarch today, King Salman of Saudi Arabia who has largely abdicated in favor of MBS. Salman recognized the danger of the Saudi throne being passed from aged brother to aged brother, a gerontocracy where crown princes died of old age, and skipped over many heads to get MBS next in line and passed him power to get things moving.

Given Donald's age, he should be putting one of his two and half grown sons on the ballot. Absent that, I think even mooting running Donald is evidence that MAGA, or at least some interpretations of MAGA, is a lot more fragile than it may appear.

We see this very pattern in our best example of a ruling monarch today, King Salman of Saudi Arabia who has largely abdicated in favor of MBS. Salman recognized the danger of the Saudi throne being passed from aged brother to aged brother, a gerontocracy where crown princes died of old age, and skipped over many heads to get MBS next in line and passed him power to get things moving.

But critically, Salman is still King and MBS is Crown Prince, Prime Minister and de facto regent. That is the point I was making - ruling Kings who are aligned with their heirs hand over power gradually but don't actually abdicate due to old age and infirmity. Voluntary abdication due to old age is a feature of 21st century constitutional monarchs.

Also it was on the tip of my tongue, Charles V abdicated from ruling half the world and lived out his life in a monastery.

I would respect the King for doing this, though as a general principle I think you need to wait long enough for them to be a reasonably known quantity. Certainly not younger than maybe 35. If the throne had been passed to Prince Harry ten years ago, you could have had the entire monarchy being led around by the nose to please a Californian socialite with a grudge.

Would it even be legally possible for Charles to abdicate without legal changes in each of the countries that claims him as head of state? I remember reading that the abdication of Edward required Parliament to write it into law and that law to become law in Australia, Canada, etc. Even given Charles's shaky popularity and Williams's solid popularity, I can't see that being an easy process especially with how independent all the various countries have become legally.

British monarchs have definitely abdicated before, even in the twentieth century.

Only once, since the days when they were "abdicating" under force of arms.

The Commonwealth doesn’t have any legal say on the matter AFAIK. There’s always the issue of whether they would accept William or demand that another country’s leader gets to be head of the Commonwealth, but that’s a separate matter.

My impression is that Charles is generally quite well-liked, at least in Africa, since he cares a lot about commonwealth and he’s quite internationalist. William is probably something of an unknown quantity.

The Commonwealth doesn't get legal say, but the Commonwealth realms absolutely do.

Currently, Charles is King of the United Kingdom, King of Canada, King of Australia, King of Barbados, et cetera. Each of those offices is legally a separate office, governed by law in each of those separate countries, so any abdication would require a statute law passed in each of those countries. (There're several like Papua New Guinea where it wouldn't, but several more where it would.) Similarly, any change to the royal succession would require a law in each of those countries.

That's rather difficult, so I don't expect it'll happen unless it's very much needed.

I see, thank you for explaining.

If the throne had been passed to Prince Harry ten years ago, you could have had the entire monarchy being led around by the nose to please a Californian socialite with a grudge.

I think much more likely would be a second Edward VIII situation. Maybe marrying a divorcée is not such a big scandal today, but Meghan would be totally unacceptable as queen consort. If, in this scenario, William is the younger brother and married to Kate, he would be seen as more suitable and pressure would be put on Harry to either give up Meghan or abdicate.

Also possible.

Prince Harry the heir is different man that Prince Harry the spare. He never married Meghan Markle, he married a black American divorcee specifically to avoid being compared to his brother.

William, by contrast, is certainly ready to be king. He's had 20 years of adulthood to prepare! And it would be great for the UK! The last time they had a monarch that young was 1968! Shake the cobwebs off and dance!

Sure, I would happily cheer for King William V!

Prince Harry the heir I wonder about. I think his constitution is just a bit tricky innately - I kind of assume that somebody who lets themselves be led around like that has a sort-of innate weakness of spirit that will manifest in one way or another. Maybe he would have been a slave to popularity, or in thrall to certain courtiers, or who knows, but I don't think he would have been a good king even if he hadn't been the spare.

It's just hard to separate the role from the psychology of the man where the difference is so stark. Decades ago Harry was known for his impulsiveness, his wildness, for his refusal to be led around by anyone.

But this is a philosophy of personality question. I don't think personalities exist absent context. The starting quarterback and the backup quarterback on the high school football team have different personalities, but the backup is only the backup because of the existence of the starter.

I mean, maybe his impulsiveness and refusal to be left around is why... well I doubt queen Elizabeth wanted him to marry Meghan Markle.

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Context has some effect, but I’ve always been very struck by the (Greek?) phrase: Men travel to escape from themselves, but it does not work. For wherever you go, there you are.

In my experience, I would say that one’s own personality is somewhat more malleable than one realises and also far, far less.

Edit: the specific phrasing is more recent, but I’m sure I read something to that effect in Seneca or some other classical source.

[Old age abdication was common for Japanese Emperors, but they were never ruling monarchs]

Sort of? AFAIK it was considered a big thing when Emperor Akihito abdicated in 2019 (since the emperor is also anointed by God, or possibly is a god, I forget) and nobody had done it for 200 years. I'd be interested to hear more background on this.

I am not an expert, but under the Shogunate the (non-ruling) Emperors normally abdicated after about a decade. The official reason was that the religious duties of the Emperor were so tedious that it was unreasonable to expect someone to do the job for life, the actual reason was presumably to prevent the Emperor becoming a threat to the Shogun. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Emperor officially became a ruling Emperor again (in fact it was a UK-style constitutional monarchy and the elected Prime Minister held more real power than the Emperor) and the abdications stopped.

That’s very interesting, thanks for explaining.

I always wanted to try studying Japanese history in the original, without preconceptions, but my la gauge ability didn’t really develop fast enough to make that viable, so I’m more ignorant than I’d like to be.

Japanese emperors in a certain period would abdicate to gain more power, and the current ruling Emperor would be just a puppet.

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