WASHINGTON — Camelot, it's not. King Arthur, not even close. Donald Trump is a pretender president who doesn't even pretend to do right by the people.

In all candor, this city, graced by garden squares, memorials and museums, feels like a crime scene, with his fingerprints everywhere on it. Places we held dear are demolished (the White House East Wing) or closed (the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts). But who knows what's in the knave's heart?

Trump also dumped toxic debris from the East Wing site onto a popular public golf course. His visage scowls from windows at passersby on Pennsylvania Avenue. Oh, and he's painting the Reflecting Pool blue for $13 million.

Surely you've heard about the huge arch he wants to build blocking the sightline between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial?

In one dark view, he stopped circulation of the Lincoln penny because he didn't want daily reminders of the truly great president.

Abraham Lincoln won the Civil War the Confederacy started. Trump didn't ask or tell anyone outside his circle he'd start an unwinnable war of choice on Iran. It has continued for 75 days and counting, with no end in sight.

Republicans on Capitol Hill told Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth they have serious concerns about spending billions, even trillions, on a rash expeditionary war for no good reason.

Then again, Hegseth is Trump's pet in the Cabinet, along with wild Bobby Kennedy Jr., who's waging a war on vaccines within the Health and Human Services department. His cousin Caroline Kennedy said he vaccinated his own children.

Regular families are feeling the pain of higher gas and groceries costs, kitchen table issues. Trump calls affordability a "hoax." (Same for climate change.) That is a remarkable thing for a president to say.

Farmers say they are stuck in a "perfect storm" with shipments of fertilizer held up in Iran's blocked Strait of Hormuz. Rural voters are a key Trump constituency, but he doesn't seem to feel their pain, either.

What Trump does care about is the ballroom he wants to build in the East Wing shambles. He just announced he'd tell Congress he needs an extra $1 billion for security enhancements, flaunting this extravagance while his programs cut food stamps for children and health care for families.

Democrats are fighting mad at Trump and now at the Supreme Court. Watch out for their wrath, as Chief Justice John Roberts virtually destroyed the last vestiges of the Voting Rights Act.

The court struck down House of Representative districts that were drawn to fairly represent Black populations in each state. The Civil Rights movement law brought Blacks to Congress from the South, in a major social reform — or revolution.

For Roberts, this is a lifelong career goal fulfilled. As a young Republican government lawyer, he opposed the landmark legislation. With five Republican Court members, three named by Trump, he led the way to undermining it.

Roberts posed as a "balls and strikes" kind of judicial mind. Now he's "shocked, shocked" that he's seen as a racial and political partisan under that cloak and sober mien.

Roberts is our era's Roger Taney, author of the dreadful Dred Scott 1857 ruling that Blacks could never be citizens with rights.

At least Taney didn't pretend he wasn't upholding America's system of racial oppression. To think that six unelected people should wipe out Black lawmakers' gains from the South is galling.

At the same time, four members of the Virginia Supreme Court nullified a recent election to redraw the state's House districts for a more favorable Democratic map. You may ask why.

Yes, it was Trump's idea in the first place to change and redraw the Texas House delegation to gain more Republican seats in the 2026 midterms. Normally that is done every 10 years, with new Census numbers, but Trump threw the book of rules out.

One problem is that Trump never fights fair. Never. He does what he wants, and he treats his office that way every day.

Here and now is a lesson that could not be clearer. True democracy depends upon a president that tries to please the people.

The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

Photo credit: Darpan at Unsplash