We all live in America now. From based and redpilled Right-wingers to fully automated luxury communism-enjoyers, most politically engaged British people are drawn to the excitement and scope of US politics, the sense of a genuine ideological battle between two properly opposing worldviews. Inauguration Day in Washington DC yesterday provided plenty of opportunities to comment and prognosticate on the present and future of the USA.
Several big names on the British Right attended in person, including Suella Braverman, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Braverman and Farage will likely have important roles to play in the reforging of British politics, and are doubtless seeking inspiration, good publicity on new Right media, and access to American networks. They have genuine ideological affinities with Trump 2.0. Johnson’s attendance, meanwhile, is a stark reminder of his total failure to take advantage of a decisive victory similar to Trump’s. His affiliation with the new president can be based on little more than personal vibes; in practical policy terms, he is more or less entirely opposed to the actions being taken by the new US administration concerning the border, energy, and the American equivalent of “the Blob”.
British preoccupation with US politics is a longstanding phenomenon, of course. Television and radio in the UK have long delivered incessant coverage of American elections. My generation spent a lot of imaginative time across the Atlantic, watching Saved By The Bell and The West Wing. Notoriously, in 2004, the Guardian encouraged its readers to contact voters in Clark County, Ohio, to persuade them to vote for John Kerry over George Bush. The county flipped from Democratic to Republican and has remained so ever since.
It’s not just Right-wingers like those mentioned above who are enamoured with America. The spread of the Black Lives Matter movement to Britain is the most obvious example of this mindset taking hold on the Left, with British campaigners adopting America-brained talking points about police brutality and racism that made very little sense in the context of the UK. Fads such as decolonisation, and a belief in “white supremacy” as a powerful force, were similarly copied wholesale from US discourse by provincial Britons desperate to keep up with fashions in the imperial centre.
But British conservatives who understandably wish to learn from the courage and vigour of their US counterparts will need to be careful. Polling suggests a considerable amount of scepticism about Trump and his allies among British people. Many are put off by the expensive bombast of American politics, and would dislike any attempt to reproduce it here. Impatient Right-wing reformers may be exasperated with the tradition of Tory pragmatism, but it has its place. Ours is an old country, with a long continuity and a precious inheritance. Much of the dysfunction in British institutions can be repaired; it is not necessary to simply abandon or destroy those institutions. The British Right also presently lacks the expertise and understanding required to impose its will on the various parts of the governing machine. Trump has access to a pool of talent that does not yet exist in this country.
However, it’s not hard to understand why both sides are drawn to the vitality of the American scene. Mainstream British politics, for now at least, is stuck in a wearisome holding pattern. Reform UK polling at 25% suggests possible dramatic change on the horizon, but nothing is certain. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is a kind of anti-Trump: doggedly Left-wing, dull, quietly fanatical, completely bound by the conventional wisdom of his class and training as a human rights lawyer. All the same, we should be careful in how much attention we devote to the exciting ructions across the pond. Britain’s problems are similar to America’s, but they are not identical. They will have to be solved in different ways by different people, via uniquely British mechanisms of state and social life.
The hope must be that we can gain inspiration and energy from Trump’s proclaimed “new golden age” for the USA. The Americans are rightly lauded for their optimism, practicality and self-belief; if we must attach ourselves psychologically and emotionally to the ups and downs of their politics, then let us adopt those qualities. Without them, there is little prospect of success for British reformers.
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Subscribe“Ours is an old country, with a long continuity and a precious inheritance.”
An inheritance already squandered by those who favour global liberalism and ‘Human Rights’ over previous traditions.
‘Make England Great Again’ – probably wouldn’t catch on. But it beats ‘Make UK Rubbish Again’
Yea, that’ll repair those traditions, vapid meaningless shibboleths. Done wonders for America’s traditional institutions since 2016.
America’s traditional institutions have rotted from the inside out. MAGA had nothing to do with it. The attempt to rule the country through regulators rather than legislation is a direct attack on the Constitutional order. From the EPA attempting to regulate carbon dioxide, to the COVID fiasco, to the de facto opening of the borders, to Gov’t censorship of social media, we have seen a slow-motion coup attempt from with these “traditional institutions”.
MAGA is the desperate attempt to stop this coup by the technocratic Gov’t elite and restore Republican Democracy to America.
Whereas in the U.K. it’s rule by judicial overreach that is causing the rot.
When is Unherd going to find a contributor brave enough to write about the infiltration, sabotage and gutting of the Conservative Party?
As documented by Nadine Dorries and confirmed by Cummings
If Dorries and Cummings have already done it, then where is the need? You, on the other hand, need a new hobby.
It’s ignored by the mainstream media and Unherd. Worse than that, buried deep.
Or, more likely, nobody cares? It’s the conservative party, nobody is lamenting any sort of gutting.
The UK couldn’t replicate the American characteristics of exceptionalism and expansionism of the Monroe and Polk sort that Trump is resurrecting. Like them, Trump has declared that American interests are not the same as even those of the friends of the USA.
The golden age of the USA is not one meant for anyone else. American optimism, self-belief and practicality derived from their 19th century experience and is entirely American.
The ravages of adopting American characteristics in Britain, such as BLM, are like the unintentional creation of the Leyland cypress. Two North American species, unlikely to meet in the wild, were brought to the British Isles where they hybridised to produce a variant that was far more vigorous than either parent. The result is often a disaster for neighbour relations.
One ‘long continuity’ that is unlikely to be continued is the coronation ceremony of the monarch. Given the structure of the US government, how strange that at Trump’s inauguration there was all those fervent evangelical prayers to the Lord of Hosts. How modest by comparison the Archbishop of Canterbury’s performance at the recent coronation of the King.
Trump’s intention to rename the Gulf of Mexico has been met with ridicule. But given how Britain renamed the German Sea and her own royal house, it might be wondered whether the English Channel still merits that name.
The major difference between USA and UK governance is that an executive president picks his own cabinet, senior aides and middle managers; prime ministers are saddled with rival politicians, senior and middle civil servants and political advisors. Try Trump style in this country and the civil service and rivals from your own party will collaborate with the rest of The Blob to ruin the country in order to bring you down.
The UK fascination (and sometimes distaste) with all things American was perfectly clear in the 1960s, when the new independent TV channels started to import US shows and the leading rock bands openly credited their inspiration on American blues music.
There have been many voices on this platform who claimed that the US was “lost”. Well, as that great American hymn Amazing Grace goes: “…and now i’m found”. I mean this in a very practical sense, and if it can happen over the pond, we’ve already shown that we can pick up the thread and weave our own way into the light.
> Much of the dysfunction in British institutions can be repaired; it is not necessary to simply abandon or destroy those institutions
Citation needed, the British “institutions” are so thoroughly corrupt and captured, and quite frankly so numerous that what the whole dang apparatus needs is a through gutting. It was demonstrated quite clearly in Yes Minister, and is on display for the world to see.
I mean you lot have over 2 dozen cabinet positions maybe you could cut down on that. After all I don’t see the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology seem to be doing anything, and you can cut out more than half the waste in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero by eliminating the last half of that directive. Also why do you have a Secretary of Work and Pensions and a Secretary of State for Business and Trade. Do a coin flip and fire the other one.
The problem with bureaucracy is that it is always growing and seems to need to be justified. Trumps great talent is recognizing that often more is less. You tommies need to realize that you need to accept austerity and not in your public expenditures, (although that needs to happen as well) but in the size and scope of the civil service, cut them, cut them all a 20% reduction in the size of the civil service could occur without any impact to the effectiveness of the operation of His Majesty’s government.
“It was demonstrated quite clearly in Yes Minister”
This guy seems to think that a 40 year old comedy is a factual representation of how HMG works. Now that is funny!
Not as funny, sport, as your predictions for the US election (among other things).
If you were Chairperson of a large industrial enterprise you would not appoint junior graduate trainees to the board and as CEO. Yet we have a government of graduate trainees. What can possibly go wrong?
This “scepticism about Trump and his allies among British people” can be accounted for in three letters…..BBC. Fifty+ years of insidious “impartial” BBC Leftist mood music – in ‘current affairs’, in documentaies and – even more insidiously – in drama serials (like these ones: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/non-binary-sibling-is-entertaining). What about ITV and C4 you might ask…well just BBC doppelgangers really.
The only good news is that this “impartial” Lefty UK media hegemony does at last seem to be breaking down amongst the younger generations.
“Britain’s problems are similar to America’s, but they are not identical. They will have to be solved in different ways by different people, via uniquely British mechanisms of state and social life.”
I suppose this means that lynching is out? Bum!
You can give it a try if you want, sonny.
So brave, so tough, so anonymous.
And, just like the Republicans, they’re anything but conservative.
They’re really just reactionary drifters whose instincts inform their policies rather than any overarching philosophy. Perhaps only two ideas are at the heart of modern conservatism: anything ‘woke’ is bad and a slavish servitude to capitalism.
They care very little for big ideas, have nothing to put in place of the ‘woke culture’ they hate, have nothing to say on culture other than meaningless platitudes about “judeo-christian” and “western” values which genuinely mean absolutely nothing. They don’t even know their own histories or understand the Christianity they claim to adore, let alone believe in it. They certainly don’t care about the conservative responsibility to be good stewards for Earth – that would be too progressive. Modern conservatives is, like modern progressiveness, all about aesthetics.
It isn’t important if you’re a good family man, a good christian, have a demonstrable understanding and love for the principles upon which the country is built. All that matters is that you’re seen to be these things, so kiss the babies heads, put your hand on your heart during the national anthem, wave the flag and repeat how much you love your country; which is why a man who has had multiple affairs, treats women like dirt, lies almost as frequently as he breathes, adores materialism, acts vindictive, insults people regularly and never shows an ounce of humility, grace or forgiveness can drift into the Presidency on the conservative vote riding the money of a ketamine addicted degenerate. Then, when you get power, sell it down the river in the name of capitalism, the very same system that has done so much to contribute to the defenestration of our nations.
Jimmy Carter was a Democrat and he was far more conservative in the proper meaning than any other these “conservative” and he wasn’t even conservative. Conservatism is dead, all that remains are alienated people who bemoan the fact their countries have changed without being able to articulate or identify how it has changed. They sense the hole in their nations, but don’t quite know its shape.
“Conservatives” will have to learn the hard way that you have to do a whole lot more than just get rid of liberalism, you have to actually replace it, but that requires thinking and contemporary conservatives are not prone to thought.
See, that is the difference between us and you…The Americans are rightly lauded for their optimism, practicality and self-belief…
I believe in optimism, practicality, and yes my country, my flag. You just dont get it.
Little good their optimism has done them.
I’ll pick reality over wishful thinking.
‘…the Guardian encouraged its readers to contact voters in Clark County, Ohio, to persuade them to vote for John Kerry over George Bush. The county flipped from Democratic to Republican and has remained so ever since.’
Jeez, is anyone surprised? Imagine a Guardian reader who on top of that is also motivated enough to contact you and try to persuade you how to vote. Not something you’d forget in a hurry.
The amplification of American MAGA is in direct proportion to the despair over our own politicians. We are simply looking around the world for someone with a modicum of common sense married to a modicum of competence. We equally watch Milei’s actions, wishing him success in the outcomes of his extraordinary presidency. Don’t misattribute the interest. The private conversations in my network have never been so raw, angry, and bewildered as Labour lurch from one calamity to the next, misreading the room and breaking every stick of furniture as it flails around.
Most people are tired of waiting for the left to stop hating us.
If there is skepticism about Trump in Britain, that is because it has been manufactured by a relentless anti-Trump MSM campaign. You see the same campaign waged against Milei of Argentina.
Let us see how the “skepticism” survives unfolding unavoidable reality.
“The spread of the Black Lives Matter movement to Britain is the most obvious example of this mindset taking hold on the Left …”
This nasty mindset substantially embedded itself in the ‘Right’ Tory Party! The worst excesses of Woke were enthusiastically woven into the fabric of public life under the past 14 years of Tory rule. To think that evil, divisive doctrines like BLM are somehow the domain of the Left is deeply misguided!