The Royal Kardashians Are Having Another Baby

For a people who risked it all for freedom and democratic consensus and burgers, Americans really love royalty.

We’ve crowned multiple Queens of Pop: Madonna. Lady Gaga. Britney. Beyoncé. A while ago, we had a king. We have Princesses of Long Island and Shahs of Sunset. We have the Clintons and the Bushes — dynasties in every way as royal as the Habsburgs and the Romanovs. And while England introduced the world to Prince William and Kate Middleton, we gave the cosmos something better.

We invented Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. For them, we have tuned in for so much more than presidential fireside chats.

We’ve followed them — on Instagram and Twitter and to newsstands and new tabs. True subjects, we exalted and cursed them in the same breath. As sovereigns, they derive whatever power they have from us. The media circus that surrounds them is proof: This is no coup d’etat. We anointed them.

Even as we protest, we read and click and watch and shop: the wedding that announced them, a television show, magazine covers, mobile apps, musical compilations, clothing kollections. We ended an era of mom names to christen our daughters after cardinal directions. North West — a trendsetter before her third birthday.

Lacking a longer historical record, Americans celebrate the shiny newness of celebrity and of the Kardashian-West Klan in particular. We obsess over plastic, preferring it to porcelain and marble and an art that lasts. Storied consumers that we are, we have made room for Khloé and Kourtney and Kendall and Kylie and, now, Caitlyn. Given that Kim revealed this week that she is pregnant, we will expand our hearts and minds and the castles that 140 characters built to accommodate yet another addition to our favored royal family.

But why? What about the Kardashians and Kanye continues to appeal? Why have we allowed them to represent us on the global stage? Is it because Kim has such nice hair? Is it because Kanye told us he was an “American Boy”? Are American celebrities a poor (well, rich…) substitute for international royals? Will this latest unborn Kardashian-West be the Californian Prince Harry for which we have waited? Is red hair a recessive gene?

For the sake of this next generation on whom our eyes are already fixed, and because Kim looked great at the CFDAs: Long live the monarchy. Watch the throne.

To the future baby Kardashian-West, it’s not so bad to come in second. Just ask Princess Charlotte of Cambridge. For related articles, check out Caitlyn Jenner’s introduction to the world, a Round Table on Kim Kardashian (and why we can’t stop talking about her), a TBT Kanye West post, and our Kanye West Workout Plan. Want something completely unrelated? Look at all these pretty closets.