Donald Trump at the UN, versus Queen Liz at Her Coronation

QE II, photo from Wikimedia Commons

by Mary Maxwell, LLB

It occurred to me today, while watching the UN speech by President Trump, that we needn’t assume that “morality” and “wisdom” have come to an end owing to the present behavior of certain leaders. I think you will like my reasoning below. But first I ask you to glance at the Coronation ceremony of the British monarch.

On February 6, 1952, King George VI of England died and his oldest child, Elizabeth, thus acceded immediately to the throne. The coronation ceremony had to wait a year or so. Here is a very abridged copy of the “Order of Service”. All bolding added by me:

The Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, on Tuesday, the second day of June, 1953….

III. The Recognition

The Archbishop, together with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Great Chamberlain, Lord High Constable, and Earl Marshal (Garter King of Arms preceding them), shall then go to the East side of the Theatre, and after shall go to the other three sides in this order, South, West, and North, and at every of the four sides the Archbishop shall with a loud voice speak to the People: and the Queen in the meanwhile, standing up by King Edward’s Chair, shall turn and show herself unto the People at every of the four sides of the Theatre as the Archbishop is at every of them, the Archbishop saying:

Sirs, I here present unto you Queen ELIZABETH, your undoubted Queen: Wherefore all you who are come this day to do your homage and service, Are you willing to do the same? The People signify their willingness and joy, by loud and repeated acclamations, all with one voice crying out, GOD SAVE QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Then the trumpets shall sound.

IV. The Oath

The Archbishop standing before her shall administer the Coronation Oath….

Archbishop: Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon, and of your Possessions [?] and other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs? Queen: I solemnly promise so to do. [States’ rights!]

Archbishop: Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements? Queen: I will.

Archbishop: Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? … Queen: All this I promise to do.

Then the Queen arising out of her Chair, … the Sword of State being carried before her, shall go to the Altar, and make her solemn Oath in the sight of all the People: laying her right hand upon the Holy Gospel in the great Bible, saying these words:

The things which I have here before promised, I will perform, and keep. So help me God….Then the Queen shall kiss the Book and sign the Oath.

VIII. The Presenting of the Spurs and Sword, and the Oblation of the said Sword

… and the Archbishop shall lay it on the Altar and say: Hear our prayers, O LORD, we beseech thee, and so direct and support thy servant Queen ELIZABETH, that she may not bear the Sword in vain; but may use it as the minister of God for the terror and punishment of evildoers, and for the protection and encouragement of those that do well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then shall the Archbishop take the Sword from off the Altar, and (the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Winchester … shall deliver it into the Queen’s hands; and, the Queen holding it, the Archbishop shall say:

With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order[!!] …Amen.

XIII. The Inthroning

Then shall the Queen go to her Throne, and be lifted up into it by the Archbishops and Bishops, and other Peers of the Kingdom … shall say: Stand firm, and hold fast from henceforth the seat and state of royal and imperial dignity, which is this day delivered unto you, in the Name and by the Authority of Almighty God. –- End of Service.

US President Gives Speech at UN General Assembly, New York, Sept 22, 2026

President Trump at the UN, 2026

On September 22, 2026, United States President Donald Trump stood before the members of the UN General Assembly and made a formal statement. Some have said he sounded like a megalomaniac. Here are many excerpts (all emphasis is mine):

Madam President, Mr. Secretary General, First Lady of the United States, distinguished delegates, ambassadors, and world leaders. Six years have passed since I last stood in this grand hall… Since that day, the guns of war have shattered the peace I forged on two continents. …America is blessed with the strongest economy, … the strongest military, the strongest friendships, and the strongest spirit of any nation on the face of the earth.

This is indeed, the golden age of America. We are rapidly reversing the economic calamity we inherited from the previous administration, including ruinous price increases and record-setting inflation…. Under my leadership, energy costs are down, gasoline prices are down, grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated.

Our message is very simple. If you come illegally into the United States, you’re going to jail or you’re going back to where you came from, or perhaps even further than that, you know what that means. I want to thank the country of El Salvador for the successful and professional job they’ve done in receiving and jailing so many criminals that entered our country …On the world stage, America is respected again like it has never been respected before….

In May, I traveled to the Middle East to visit my friends and rebuild our partnerships in the Gulf, and those valued relationships with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE and other countries are now, I believe, closer than ever before… Likewise, in a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars….. Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle. If the First Lady wasn’t in great shape, she would’ve fallen. But she’s in great shape.

Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achieve- ments, but for me, the real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up with the mothers and fathers because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless and un-glorious wars.

Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex.I remember it so well. I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million, rebuilding everything. It would be beautiful.

I used to talk about, “I’m going to give you marble floors, they’re going to give you terrazzo.” The best of everything. “You’re going to have mahogany walls; they’re going to give you plastic.” But they decided to go in another direction, which was much more expensive at the time, which actually produced a far inferior product. … You walk on terrazzo. Do you notice that? …

I’ve come here today to offer the hand of American leadership and friendship to any nation in this assembly that is willing to join us in forging a safer, more prosperous world. …There is no more serious danger to our planet today than the most powerful and destructive weapons ever devised by man… these threats a top priority, starting with a nation of Iran. … Today, many of Iran’s former military commanders, in fact, I can say almost all of them are no longer with us, they’re dead.

And three months ago in Operation Midnight Hammer, seven American B-2 bombers dropped the 14 30,000 pound H-bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facility totally obliterating everything. No other country on earth could have done what we did…. We have the greatest weapons on earth. …. With Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity demolished, I immediately brokered an end to the 12-day war, as it’s called, between Israel and Iran, with both sides agreeing to fight no longer.

As everyone knows, I have also been deeply engaged in seeking a ceasefire in Gaza, we have to get that done, have to get it done. Unfortunately, Hamas has repeatedly rejected reasonable offers to make peace, and we can’t forget October 7th, can we? Now, as if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. … those who want peace should be united with one message, release the hostages now. Just release the hostages now. Thank you.

I’ve also been working relentlessly stopping the killing in Ukraine. This was a war that should have never happened. … China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil. … Europe has to step it up. They can’t be doing what they’re doing. They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia.… I like to speak my mind and speak the truth.

I’m also calling on every nation to join us in ending the development of biological weapons once and for all… Just a few years ago, reckless experiments overseas gave us a devastating global pandemic, yet despite that worldwide catastrophe, many countries are continuing extremely risky research into bio-weapons and man-made pathogens.

The number one political issue of our time [is] the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It’s uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined…. The UN also provided food, shelter, transportation, and debit cards to illegal aliens, can you believe that, on the way to infiltrate our southern border.

…Europe is in serious trouble. They’ve been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe, and nobody’s doing anything to change it…. And I have to say, I look at London where you have a terrible mayor, a terrible, terrible mayor and it’s been so changed, so changed. Now they want to go to Sharia law, but you’re in a different country, you can’t do that….

According to the Council of Europe, in 2024, almost 50% of inmates in German prisons were foreign nationals or migrants. In Austria, the number was 53% …In Greece, …54%. And in Switzerland, beautiful Switzerland, 72% of the people in prisons are from outside of Switzerland. I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell. In America, we’ve taken bold action to swiftly shut down uncontrolled migration. …

I mean, I was very proud to see this morning. I have the highest poll numbers I’ve ever had. …The previous administration also lost nearly 300,000 children. Think of that. They lost more than 300,000 children, little children who were trafficked into the United States on the Biden watch, many of whom have been raped, exploited and abused and sold. Sold. …Any system that results in the mass trafficking of children is inherently evil.

And we virtually stopped drugs coming into our country by sea. We call them the water drugs. … Tren de Aragua is from Venezuela, by the way. Such organizations torture, maim, mutilate and murder with impunity. They’re the enemies of all humanity.

For this reason, we’ve recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuelan terrorists and trafficking networks led by Nicolas Maduro to every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States … Each boat that we sink carries drugs that would kill more than 25,000 Americans. We will not let that happen. Energy is another area where the United States is now thriving like never before. We’re getting rid of the falsely named renewables.

…. And I give a lot of credit to Germany. Germany was being led down a very sick path both on immigration, by the way, and on energy. They were going green and they were going bankrupt. …. And speaking of crime, Washington D.C. was the crime capital of America. After 12 days, it’s a totally safe city. Everyone’s going out to restaurants. And yes, I called in the National Guard…. And they weren’t politically correct, but they took care of business. We got 1,700 career criminals out, brought them back to where they came from.

And I’m really good at predicting things. They actually said during the campaign, they had a hat, the best-selling hat. Trump was right about everything. And I don’t say that in a braggadocious way, but it’s true. I’ve been right about everything.

And …I love Europe. I love the people of Europe, and I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration. This double-tailed monster destroys everything in its wake, and they cannot let that happen any longer.

Our gasoline prices are way down. You know, we have an expression: “Drill, baby drill.” And that’s what we’re doing. We’re going to be much lower in a year from now. …Europe loses more than 175,000 people to heat deaths each year because the cost is so expensive they can’t turn on an air conditioner.

I unleashed massive energy production and signed historic executive orders to hunt for oil. But we don’t have to do much hunting because we have the most oil of any nation. So I have a little standing order in the White House. Never use the word coal, only use the words clean, beautiful coal. Sounds much better, doesn’t it? But we stand ready to provide any country with abundant, affordable energy supplies if you need them….

[There was] the most corrupt, incompetent administration in history. The sleepy Joe Biden administration. Brazil now faces major tariffs in response to its unprecedented efforts to interfere in the rights and freedoms of our American citizens and others with censorship, repression, weaponization, judicial corruption, and targeting of political critics in the United States.

I have a little problem saying this because I must tell you, I was walking in and the leader of Brazil was walking out. …But he seemed like a very nice man, actually. He liked me, I liked him. And I only do business with people I like.

Next year the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our glorious independence, a testament to enduring power and American freedom and spirit. … we all can rejoice in the miracles of history that began in July 4th, 1776 when we founded the Light to All Nations. …I hope that all countries who find inspiration in our example will join us in renewing our commitment values, and those values, really, that we hold so dear together. Everybody in this room is a part of it in your own way…. So together, let us uphold our sacred duty to our people and to our citizens. Let us protect their borders, ensure their safety, preserve their cultures, treasures, and traditions.

Thank you very much. It’s been an honor. God bless the nations of the world. Thank you very much. Bye.

Comparison

(L) Westminster Abbey, Photo: Londonpass.com. (R) UN Hall, Photo: United Nations

Now I want to compare the two ‘monarchs.’ In a radio broadcast the night before her Coronation, the Queen told the people: “Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust.” (Emphasis added).

At that moment, 74 years ago, the public would have found such a statement believable. Indeed, it would have sounded properly reassuring and unremarkable.

By contrast, it can be assumed that many Americans would laugh at Trump for his egotistical performance. Worse, it has caused many people to think our future is now very dangerous, as the old rules, even the rules of courtesy and diplomacy, are flouted.

And, courtesy aside, we have an American president, the leader of the Great Republic, wildly breaking the law of the land, and then telling us he deserves a pat on the back for it. (Here I will overlook the members of a Trump cult who see him as godlike and thus have childlike faith in all his policies.)

And it’s not only Trump. Professor John Mearsheimer has pointed out, on social media, that we would normally expect heads of state of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK to criticize Trump for his bellicosity since February 28, 2026, and his arrogance. What on earth makes them stay silent? What is really going on?

A Maximally Cynical View

For the moment, let me entertain the idea that the 1953 Coronation ceremony may have used a lot of the right phrases – justice, punishment of evil, kindness to orphans (Trump used that one, too), but that the ceremony was intended by The Powers That Be to keep everybody under control. Quoting the Bible would add to, not subtract from, the authority of the new, young queen.

And as for the Archbishop’s going to the North, South, East and West of the Abbey to see if the people were “on board,” it can be assumed that anyone who was known to be not on board would not have been invited to attend.

Granted, the ideas that were clearly stated at the Abbey (and worryingly omitted from the President’s speech), do reflect centuries of the development of religion and law. And I imagine that The Powers That Be view such ideas as having a potency that could be used against their dear selves. They are not so free of law as they pretend.

Is There Any Hope for People Power?

Let us remember that The Barons did use moral ideas, and demands for fairness, against King John eight centuries ago. The two parts of the 1215 Magna Carta that most remain in our lives today are:

(28) No bailiff is henceforth to put any man on oath simply by virtue of his spoken word, without reliable witnesses being produced for the same.

(29) No freeman is to be taken or imprisoned or [deprived of] his liberties or free customs, save by lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. To no-one will we sell or deny of delay right or justice.

We can presume that the practices forbidden there – e.g., imprisoning a man without fair trial – were actually happening. Indeed such things always happen – people push each other around and take advantage of the weaker ones. I presume these landowners, the ‘rebel Barons’ were looking out for their tenants, not just themselves.

Other parts of the Magna Carta look more like legislation, for example:

(7) A widow, after the death of her husband is immediately and without difficulty to have her marriage portion and her inheritance.

(20) No constable is to distrain any knight to give money for castle guard if the knight is willing to do such guard in person or by proxy of any other honest man.

(23) All fish weirs on the Thames and the Medway and throughout England are to be entirely dismantled, save on the seacoast. [translation copyright Sotheby’s]

Still, the heart of the deal at Runnymede was the rebel barons’ telling King John that he had to sign “or else.” Historian Ralph Turner notes, at Researchgate.net:

“The English barons’ problem of defining and limiting what later became known as the royal prerogative [‘No kings Day,’ October 17 this year] lies at the heart of their rebellion of 1215-17, and Magna Carta would become periodically the focus of struggles against the despotic rulers in England and later in eighteenth-century North America.”

Don’t forget the 2024 US Supreme Court giving the president an unheard of degree of immunity.

My Eureka This Morning

It is disconcerting to hear Trump speak the way he did on Sept 22, 2026, but I have been equally disconcerted over the last decade or more, by mundane matters of harassment and surveillance. Those things are partly an unintended function of, say, electronic technology, but I am sure they are also little annoyances intended to degrade us.

I hear people complain to one another about such things, and much worse things, but hardly anyone fights it. It’s assumed – correctly — that you can’t get anywhere with your congressional reps or with bureaucracies, banks, etc. So, after a while, despondency sets in and one hardly feels like celebrating our “magnificent Magna Carta heritage.”

This morning, I watched the “performance” at the UN (on YouTube) and saw the blatancy of Trump’s tossing our law overboard. He practically said “Might makes right.” There was not a scintilla of respect shown for the audience members, each of them a credentialed leader!

This made me figure that we mustn’t continue down that track, or there will be social collapse. In fact it’s possible that a collapse is planned – it may be “on the cards” and the warfare in the Middle East is perhaps scripted to make that happen. But I’ll save that discussion for later.

Today I am developing only a lesser claim. Namely, that at the time of Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation, in 1953, people could get along with one another on the basis of some general understanding of right and wrong, with those at the top expressing agreement with it. If we let them, instead, show contempt for law, we will be very badly off. Hence, we need to stop this bus. IT CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO RIDE OVER THE CLIFF.

It’s up to you to “not comply.” As they say, do something; don’t do nothing!

— Mary Maxwell’s website is ConstitutionAndTruth.com