The President Is a Man Who Would Rather Be King

To commit lèse-majesté was, and in some places still is, to commit an offense against dignity of the crown.

The basic idea was that under a monarch, and especially an absolute monarch, the integrity of the state rested on the stature of the king (or queen or equivalent figure). To insult or denigrate or even question the monarch was to undermine the state itself. In the absolutist states of medieval and early modern Europe, lèse-majesté was a high crime,........

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