Trump is cheap, but he can be bought
The copy of the Magna Carta (the “Great Charter”) that Harvard bought for $27.50 after World War II is actually one of seven originals still in existence.
David Carpenter, a professor of medieval history at King’s College London, discovered the document by accident in December 2023 while browsing digitized documents in Harvard’s archives (The New York Times):
Nicholas Vincent, a professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia, in eastern England, helped authenticate the text. He noted that the document, which bound the nation’s rulers to acting within the law, had resurfaced at a time when Harvard has come under extraordinary pressure from the Trump administration.
“In this particular instance we are dealing with an institution that is under direct attack from the state itself, so it’s almost providential it has turned up where it has at this particular time,” he said.
The charter, an agreement between the King of England and rebel barons, gave way to the idea of a limited government and inspired the writers of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. In a joint press release between the three universities, Vincent called it “the most famous single document in the history of the world.”
All this time, an original document enshrining habeas corpus — the legal right [detained Harvard genetics researcher Kseniia] Petrova was asserting, the legal right that got [Mohsen Mahdawi, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Badar Khan Suri] Suri released, the legal right Stephen Miller wants to suspend — was sitting right there in Boston, where the fight for American freedom started.
But to Donald Trump, ultimate author of those attacks on Harvard, that big, beautiful charter is not all that great if it binds the actions of kings and would-be kings. He has similar disdain for the U.S. Constitution. You know, because it’s old and not written on gold.
It’s who Trump is. It’s who he’s always been.
In the documentary Trump: What’s the Deal?, Ross MacTaggart, a designer who once worked for the real estate mogul, relates how Trump examined some Louis XVI furniture he saw at Christie’s. Trump’s sister-in-law worked there. Trump couldn’t comprehend why the 200-year-old furniture was so expensive, “just because it’s old?” [timestamp 28:30]
No, it’s about the quality and the history, she told him.
Trump argued that the furniture he was having made would be better quality. “It’s going to be better!” he insisted. “I can get better than this, can’t I?” he asked her (in MacTaggart’s retelling).
She replied, “Donald, you’re just never going to understand, are you?”
A ton of money and not one ounce of class.
You wonder why he has no appreciation for our 200-year-old U.S. Constitution?
(h/t DC)
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