No Kings: The Dangerous Lie That America’s President Was Meant to Be a Monarch

Straight White American Jesus

Axis Mundi Media: Bradley Onishi + Daniel Miller

News, Politics

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode of Straight White American Jesus features Brad Onishi unpacking a central claim gaining traction on the political and religious right: that the American presidency was always meant to function like a monarchy. In light of the nationwide “No Kings” protests, Onishi challenges arguments from figures like Michael Knowles and Adrian Vermeule, who suggest that the founders embedded a “kingly” executive into the Constitution. He traces how thinkers drawing on Thomas Aquinas use the language of the “common good” to justify stronger, more centralized authority—potentially at the expense of democratic participation and individual rights. The episode ultimately argues that this reframing of American government is not just historical revisionism, but a strategic effort to normalize authoritarian leadership under religious justification. By contrasting these claims with the founders’ explicit rejection of monarchy, Onishi underscores the stakes of the current moment: whether democracy remains a shared project rooted in the will of the people, or gives way to a model where power is consolidated in a single figure claiming moral authority. The call to “No Kings,” then, becomes not just a protest slogan, but a defense of democratic principles against rising theocratic and authoritarian visions of governance. Order American Caesar: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/american-caesar-bradley-b-onishi/1148909845?ean=9781250427922 Subscribe for $3.65:⁠ ⁠https://axismundi.supercast.com/⁠⁠ Subscribe to our free newsletter:⁠ ⁠https://swaj.substack.com/⁠⁠ Donate to SWAJ: ⁠https://axismundi.supercast.com/donations/new Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	AXISMUNTY
0:07.0	Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
0:15.0	I'm Brad Onishi, author of American Caesar,
0:19.0	how theocrats and tech lords are turning America
0:21.6	into a monarchy, founder of AccessMuddy Media, co-host of this show. This weekend, we have the
0:29.0	No Kings protests. Millions of Americans will protest in their neighborhoods. They're on their
0:35.1	main streets, in the public square, and no doubt it will be
0:39.7	a massive turnout. It may be historic, and it will be a rebuttal to the idea that the United
0:45.4	States has a king. And it may seem obvious that having a king is the most un-American thing
0:51.6	imaginable. But the American right doesn't see it that way.
0:56.0	The whole reason I wrote a book called American Caesar is because the idea of a monarch,
1:01.5	an autocrat, a sole authoritarian ruler who can make decisions for everybody,
1:06.2	is not just a fringe idea for conspiracy theorists and in cells and people on the far, far,
1:12.9	far right. It is a mainstream idea that has made its way to churches, theological centers,
1:21.0	magazines, to places of political power, those who have the ability to advise our vice president, they are tried and
1:31.2	true monarchists. So today I want to dig into one particular lie that you're going to hear
1:36.6	over and over as we approach the 250th celebration of the United States on July 4th and as we protest the idea of a king this weekend.
2:10.9	Here's the lie. You ready? It's really simple. The American president is really a king, a monarch, an unbound executive with near total control over the nation. And that's what the founders wanted. Now, that should sound like American blasphemy
2:19.2	to your ears, the opposite of the fundamental history and truth that we all learned in grade
2:25.2	school when we discovered the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution.
2:32.7	But as I write in American Caesar, my book that is coming out in
2:36.6	just a few months, and if you're interested, today, March 24th, March 25th, March 26th, you can get
	...

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