President Donald Trump’s administration moved Wednesday to revoke federal approval of New York City’s nascent congestion pricing toll model, prompting New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to file suit.

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said the program, the first of its kind in the nation, oversteps what is allowed and that he agrees with Trump that it is an unfair tax on blue-collar Americans entering Manhattan.

Trump celebrated the news with a post on his platform Truth Social: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”

The White House’s account on X joined in the fun by quoting Trump’s words and included an image of an edited magazine cover showing Trump wearing a gold crown with the New York City skyline in the background.

Those of us not surprised by this kind of statement by Trump are maybe a bit surprised that he said it so soon. It has been less than a month since Trump stood in the Capitol Rotunda, his hand nowhere near a Bible, and lied his way through the Oath of Office.

With his “governance” how-to kit that he “knew nothing about,” Project 2025 in hand it was always painfully obvious that he would decide to assume despotic trappings. And with the insane decision from the Roberts court declaring him immune from criminal prosecution for illegal acts that he brands as “official,” there is no real restraint hanging over him. Congress—both houses—are in his pocket, thus there are neither checks nor balances available from the other two branches of our former government. There are three House seats in play with special elections coming in April offering a very slim opportunity to flip the House back to a Democratic majority. But slim is more of an overstatement.

One of the problems with the kings of old was that they sometimes liked to play to their more fevered ambitions, like foreign conquest. Getting serfs to bow and scrape is just never enough. They wanted more serfs bowing and scraping. The best way to get them—in kingly minds—was to take over someone else’s lands.

The Anschluss card was on the table early on with Trump’s open lust for things like “buying” Greenland, evicting millions of Palestinians to make way for the Trump Gaza Resorts and snatching back the Panama Canal from its owner. Oh, and that little item of wanting to annex Canada—to which Canadians responded with a distinct lack of their legendary politeness.

While various sycophants in Trump’s orbit jockey for positions in his court, this wannabe king continues to disregard the lessons of history—which he probably never studied because daddy more likely paid someone to do his tests for him. One of those important lessons he’s ignoring is the legendary allergy America has to Kings.

In his mind Trump is the master of all he surveys, keeper of all the spoils, owner of all the money and the real estate. But like President Zelenskyy stated yesterday, Trump is “living in a disinformation space.” Trump has been living in a disinformation bubble since before 2015 at least. He thinks lying continually will keep working for him because to him it always has. But that string can only stretch so far. Sooner or later it is going to snap back.

Claiming the title of king is just the latest example of pushing what he thinks are no limits. Of course, his mouthpieces will start explaining “that’s not what he meant,” “you’re taking him out of context,” etc., the usual we’ve seen for years. These “interpretations” will then be followed by, “get over it.”

Donald Trump doesn’t realize that each breach of the Constitution, each affront to the nearly 250 history of this country is building toward a whiplash coming back against him. He thinks his immunity means something. But the bottom line is that this is the country that crushed Hitler.

And in the end, the man with the kingly ambition fared badly in Kipling’s story too.