Will Queen Elizabeth Give Trump Royal PR Etiquette Advice? [Opinion]

Queen Elizabeth is known for her social grace, but can she help Donald Trump brush up on his head-of-state manners so he can look and act like royalty in public?

As it appears, former President Barack Obama might agree that Queen Elizabeth is an expert on how to wear the crown well. After Obama visited Queen Elizabeth in 2009, he stated the following.

“I think what the queen stands for and her decency and her civility, what she represents, that’s very important.”

Although there is a petition circulating that asks Queen Elizabeth to cancel her invitation to have Donald Trump visit Buckingham Palace or the U.K. on Her Majesty’s behalf — keeping the invitation could mean an opportunity to educate Trump on manners.

After all, one of the primary ways that Queen Elizabeth shows that she is particularly stealthy with head-of-state etiquette is with her relationship with the media — and Donald Trump’s infant presidency seems to have problems in this area.

Currently, Trump’s manners are being described as “erratic compulsions, short attention span, and [a] tendency to lash out at real or perceived slights,” according to Washington Post.

About Trump needing some advice on his PR skills, Trevor Noah of The Daily Show stated in an interview with Al Jazeera around February 11 that, Trump’s Twitter skills were obviously not “clearly refined, yet,” and that Trump “tweeting policy” was absolutely ridiculous.

In addition, other members of Donald Trump’s presidential staff also seem to have an issue with dealing with the media with a certain type of professionalism that Queen Elizabeth and her royal staff excel at.

For example, Donald Trump’s Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, recently stated to the media in a Super Bowl Sunday interview that Melissa McCarthy’s impression of him on the television show SNL needed to be “dialed back.”

Obviously, the media thought that it was really funny Sean Spicer would care so much about Melissa McCarthy and a well-known comedy show that makes fun of every president.

Instead, it appears that what America is expecting from Donald Trump and his sidekicks is a certain type of professional etiquette that Queen Elizabeth and her royal staff have perfected.

For example, Donald Trump should not tweet about Meryl Streep because Queen Elizabeth never utters a single opinion about her theatrical body-double, Helen Mirren.

Sean Spicer being impersonated by Melissa McCarthy or Trump being impersonated by Alec Baldwin is nothing because Queen Elizabeth has been portrayed in several movies and also in television series such as The Crown on Netflix.

In particular, English actress Helen Mirren has portrayed several female members of the Royal Family throughout history including Queen Elizabeth II.

Despite the fact that Helen Mirren is considered one of the top actresses in the world and Queen Elizabeth should not be embarrassed that Helen Mirren is playing her in a film, Helen Mirren still does not know what Queen Elizabeth’s opinion is of her acting skills.

Adding to this, Helen Mirren explained in an interview with Playbill in 2015 that it was generally understood that Queen Elizabeth would never make a comment about something like popular culture and stated the following.

“The royal family — and the queen, in particular — have always very liberal because we come from a country that has free speech. There have been films mocking them… and abusing them in all kinds of different ways, and, through it all, they have never said a word. They just let that happen. They don’t defend themselves. They don’t say anything. In a sense, it’s not their role to critique that particular world. Likewise, it applies to a film that I know was appreciated by the people around the queen — but the queen herself would never say anything.”

In other words, if Queen Elizabeth started acting like she had been trolled and reacted by tweeting about the entertainment industry on a regular basis like Donald Trump, people in England would be shocked by her behavior because she would not be honoring free speech.

Trump’s Twitter behavior might be dismissed in the U.K. because America has traditionally been criticized for having bad manners by the international community, but Donald Trump’s behavior is not only unsavory — it also does not give him an upper hand with the popularity he craves.

Undoubtedly, Queen Elizabeth has made her six-decades-long relationship with the press look easy and it is clear that she gets rave reviews from the media about her reign. On top of this, Queen Elizabeth has found her U.K. subjects have stayed loyal to her — if not in love with her — for decades.

Interestingly, Queen Elizabeth’s good record with the public was challenged and almost ruined from the very first day that she ruled the U.K. as regent.

According to a history piece in the Daily Mail by Hugo Vickers, the BBC wanted to film as much of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 as possible.

Although Queen Elizabeth was very grateful to have the offer from the BBC and said she would let them film her, the Royal Courtiers were and are still the ones in charge of making sure manners are followed between royals and the public.

When the Royal Courtiers told the BBC that they did not feel comfortable with Queen Elizabeth’s coronation being filmed, the BBC started to air this refusal on the news as often as possible.

Naturally, the people of the U.K. rebelled that Queen Elizabeth would not be on live television for her coronation, and the courtiers eventually changed their minds about what it meant to have good manners with the media in those early days of television.

However, this interaction with the public being angry at Queen Elizabeth because she turned down and then accepted the invitation to be on television in 1953 set the stage for her relationship with both the media and her Royal British Subjects.

For example, Queen Elizabeth’s acceptance of the offer to film the coronation was only allowed if they turned the cameras off when she was accepting her duties as the head of the Church of England.

Queen Elizabeth made it very clear that this was a personal choice and a demand that she was making because she took her religious duties very seriously.

Over time, it became apparent that Queen Elizabeth was happy to invite the media to any kind of event that she was participating in, and she always smiled warmly for the cameras.

On the other hand, Queen Elizabeth does not necessarily hold her tongue where it concerns the historic facts about the Royal Family — but her disdain to the media is not meant to be interpreted as a threat or censorship.

When there is a serious issue where Queen Elizabeth needs to scold the press — the way she does it is one that Donald Trump should take note of. For example, Telegraph reports that Queen Elizabeth was scandalized when a frame from a 1933 film about the royal family showed them doing a “Nazi salute” with their hands and arms.

Queen Elizabeth was absolutely outraged, and had her staff tell the press that this was a case where they truly went too far. In particular, Queen Elizabeth was six-years-old in that picture, and, when the full video is viewed, it is clear that the members of the Royal Family were mocking the newly-elected Nazis after a relative had recently visited Germany.

As far as the reprimand of this tabloid, Queen Elizabeth did not call it fake news, file a lawsuit saying it affected her brands within the Sovereign Grant, or say she was going to send in her troops to take care of the problem. Instead Queen Elizabeth relayed through her staff that “Buckingham Palace was disappointed” by this tabloid.

Other advice Queen Elizabeth could share with Donald Trump is how to get away with never doing a full press interview.

About her “seen and not heard” approach to being head-of-state, Royal Central reports Queen Elizabeth’s main reservation with interviews is that they present an opportunity for something to get “misinterpreted.”

One overarching rule for questioning Her Majesty is that Queen Elizabeth “does not give opinions” about general topics like pop culture.

At the same time, Queen Elizabeth also knows how to keep her royal subjects and biggest fans entertained with periodic speeches that she gives throughout the year. For example, many fans were worried that Queen Elizabeth would not give her annual Christmas speech on television in 2016 because she was cancelling church services at Sandringham due to a heavy cold.

Throughout the year, Queen Elizabeth also connects with her people in person by hosting dinners with members of the commonwealth as well as visiting charity projects and shaking hands throughout the year.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, when Donald Trump visits, he wants to spend time with Queen Elizabeth playing golf at her private course at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.

While there has been a petition circulated in the U.K. that is signed by millions asking Queen Elizabeth to rescind her offer to Donald Trump for an official visit, the best case scenario is keeping the invite extended — but make sure Trump is hanging out with people that can give him some tips on head-of-state manners.

For example, Queen Elizabeth has a multitude of filters between herself and the public or media. In addition to her speech writers, her Royal Courtiers, Buckingham Palace PR, or the staff she hired for her social media, according to People, Queen Elizabeth could also recommend royal butler etiquette expert, Grant Harrold.

Sadly, Trump might not be able to keep up with all of the rules associated with meeting Queen Elizabeth in the first place because he has “no attention span,” according to a Trump ghostwriter’s interview with the New Yorker.

For example, can Trump really be trusted to remember not to call Queen Elizabeth “Queenie” or “Liz” instead of “Her Majesty”? ABC also points out that it is protocol to “never touch the queen,” always keep the teacups on the saucers, and to stop eating after Her Majesty has taken her last bite.

[Feature Image by Stefan Wermuth – WPA Pool/Getty Images]