"I hereby order the tide to recede." Please come CAPTION PresiDented Donald Trump!!!

[skip fox]

PresiDented (Crazy King George) Trump is saying: "Beside ordering all U.S. businesses not to have any relationship with China, I have many more ideas of how to deal with them if they persist in their madness. . . . I could stop all Mandarin classes at our great universities. . . . I could order government maps to be re-drawn without China on them. . . . I could prohibit anyone from even saying 'China' if I wanted to . . . I can do these things by executive order and they would all be perfectly legal."

[malaise]

1. And the crowds shouted No No No

Please walk on water - deep deep water

[Sneederbunk]

2. Ich bin ein Greenlander.

[UniteFightBack]

3. The only thing I won't order to recede is my hairline. nt

[struggle4progress]

4. "People are saying that when I hold my head like this I look like Benito!"

[Wounded Bear]

5. It's been tried before...

[skip fox]

6. Results? The drowning of a stupid king.

Metaphorically the same thing seems to be happening.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. No, Canute did not try to stop the tide

He was doing the opposite: demonstrating to his courtiers that he was merely human and had no such divine powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide

[Falcata]

9. +1

First thing I thought of when I read the headline of the OP.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. Canute was demonstrating that he couldn't control the tide

The anecdote was intended to illustrate his humility, not his arrogance.

Trump is the very opposite of Canute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide

[skip fox]

10. The OP still "works"

It clearly implies that Trump is so arrogant he actually thinks he can reverse the tides.

But thanks for the correction. That's good to know. I had always remembered the tale as a cautionary. Creative memory. And one that produces a far inferior version of the original which is nuanced is a bit fantastic. (Would anyone actually belie he could?) but not as fantastic as my mistaken memory. (Beyond the unlikelihood that anyone would ever believe he or she could control the natural orders, the impossibility that anyone would sit there and drown to make a point or out of profound confusion, or whatever.)