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The British monarch came before Congress to jointly celebrate the 250th anniversary of the former American colonies throwing off his “five-times-great-grandfather” to become the independent United States. But the speech by King Charles III was enough to make Americans want to swap their current president, a wannabe king, for the real thing again.

Just kidding, of course. Yet Charles, in his 28-minute homage on Wednesday to the two countries’ shared ideals and tenets — democracy, the rule of law and checks and balances on executive power by an independent judiciary and legislature — and his affirmation of the mutual benefits of alliances like NATO, free trade, diversity and action against climate change, delivered the sort of stirring performance that President Trump is incapable of. And not just because Trump lacks the king’s eloquence, but because he is daily attacking the very legacies that Charles honored.

It took a king to remind a shamedly complicit Republican-controlled Congress that its constitutional role, drawn by America’s founders from the Magna Carta, is to ensure that U.S. governance is “not by the will of one, but by the deliberation of many, representing the living mosaic of the United States.” (Democrats led the standing ovation.)

For The One’s part, meanwhile, the White House after the speech posted a photo of Trump and Charles labeled “TWO KINGS,” with an emoji of a bejeweled crown. I know, I know — it was the usual sort of Trumpian joke to own the libs. But it wasn’t funny. Nor was Jimmy Kimmel’s joke last week about Melania Trump having “a glow like an expectant widow.” But that sure didn’t justify King Donald and his court threatening Disney’s ABC station licenses, again, to get Kimmel’s employer to fire him.

Last fall it was public revulsion at such a heavy-handed attack against Kimmel and free speech more broadly that forced Trump and Disney to back off. And now, after months more of Trump’s abuses of power — deadly violence by federal immigration agents; military strikes against alleged drug-running boats; the Versailles-ification of the White House; mounting evidence of Trump family self-enrichment; and an unauthorized, two-month-old war on Iran — it seems the American public has really tired of Trump’s self-aggrandizing strong-man schtick.

Perhaps it was his nightmarish polls of late that had the president awake at 4 a.m. on Wednesday. At that predawn hour he sought to burnish his tough-guy aura, posting a warning to Iran: “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!” The words captioned an AI-generated photo of Trump in aviator sunglasses with an assault rifle, as explosions burst in a mountain redoubt behind him.

Few are fooled. On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz decried Trump’s Mideast miscalculation and fruitless negotiations with Iran: “An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.” But what’s more important for the future is Americans’ own disparagement of their president, and the fact that a growing majority of Americans see Trump as a cartoonish caricature........

© Los Angeles Times