4 ms·

I love the Atlantic but here we go again: Americans defining Britain in American terms as if they are the ineffable, indisputable default. The USA, right now,

by dofm 5mo ago

I love the Atlantic but here we go again: Americans defining Britain in American terms as if they are the ineffable, indisputable default. The USA, right now, is heading into its own Suez crisis, with a de facto king attacking its democracy, and literally cannot even organise a proper birthday party at the most prestigious address in the world. The UK has many problems we must grapple with, but I think, maybe, right now is not the time to argue from a US default position. Not least while your three vice president ghouls (Musk, Vance and Rubio) are so loudly cheering for us and all of Europe to fail. To quote your first king, clean up your own backyard.

lucasRW 5mo ago
Musk, Vance and Rubio are cheering for Europe to wakeup. Quite the opposite of what you say.
- dofm 5mo ago
  Explicit US foreign policy seeks to undermine the EU — literally meddling in favour of people who wish to see the EU federally weakened. And Musk argues for violence, including at far-right rallies. This is not some positive, friendly, brotherly call for us to wake up — it's an argument for white supremacy (as most recently outlined by Pete Hegseth, weekend TV anchor turned defence secretary).
  - lucasRW 5mo ago
    Hmmm... the only people that have "federally weakened" the EU are those that made that continent much poorer and less powerful than it was 20, 30 years ago. So you are correct partially: the US, throughout the second half of the second century, have seeked to weaken Europe and successfully done so (all indicators are worst now than they've ever been in Europe).
pb7 5mo ago
You have a literal king, so maybe you shouldn't criticize them lest the coppers show up at your doorstep. Our "king" was democratically elected and has so little power he can't even organize a birthday party as you say, let alone do anything else.
- dofm 5mo ago
  > so maybe you shouldn't criticize them lest the coppers show up at your doorstep. Not sure what you imagine the UK is like but we literally don't have lèse majesté laws, so there is no legal basis for that to happen. It does not happen. (And no, merely saying it online isn't a basis either). Apart from stupid comedy overreactions at the coronation protests that exasperated us all and saw significant pushback (our police lean so firmly against use of force at protests that they sometimes do silly things in the name of stopping "disruption"), we have a rich, varied, centuries-long tradition of being able to soundly criticise our monarchy. Indeed we did so with such efficiency recently that our king actually listened and took his own brother's title, powers and roles away. Meanwhile there are people in the USA fighting lawsuits over being falsely imprisoned for saying true things about Charlie Kirk.
  - codeduck 5mo ago
    You're arguing with people who don't understand the word Parliament in the term "Parliamentary Democracy". Just nod, tut, and move on, it will be better for your mental health.
    - dofm 5mo ago
      Funnily enough I am OK about this stuff, these days. It would be absurd to pretend that we don't have problems; we obviously have problems. And things are extremely bad right now, especially with our former transatlantic friends actively agitating the situation. But internationally it has got a lot easier to see our problems with clarity in the last year and a half, and a lot easier to argue that every significant country has its difficulties.
    - SanjayMehta 5mo ago
      They keep saying Trump has been impeached twice but he's still around. Does impeach mean something else in American English? I don't understand why he's labelled as "impeached" when the final outcome was acquitted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_T...
havblue 5mo ago
I doubt there are many people at the Atlantic who voted for Trump and the author has worked for the Economist before. So I'm not sure what you're asking for, unless you're saying he should move back to London if he's to write about the UK.
- dofm 5mo ago
  Ahh well if he worked for the Economist that explains it. Sorry, I didn't realise. I didn't suggest that Trump voting was the problem. Americans of literally all political persuasions have simply no idea how this country actually works. There is a level of ignorance that is often comical. The reverse is not true in quite the same way. If you were to ask an American to name UK political figures, most cannot. Whereas our coverage of your political system is such that anyone with a passing interest in politics can _really_ get into it on US politics; it's a very asymmmetric experience that is hard to explain.
  - pb7 5mo ago
    >Whereas our coverage of your political system is such that anyone with a passing interest in politics can _really_ get into it on US politics; it's a very asymmmetric experience that is hard to explain. I don't share your enthusiasm in this being a good thing. In fact, this is a common problem I've noticed over the last decade in that Europeans feel like they know the US and are qualified to comment on issues by virtue of consuming movies and political media of a certain spin (like all media). You are simply consuming someone's opinion with little to no opportunity to validate it against day to day life.
    - dofm 5mo ago
      Oh I don't think it is a good thing, at all. But this time round in particular, it is absolutely a thing. People in Denmark, for example, have no choice but to understand at some level the internal cabinet politics of the USA. Because they need to know, when JD Vance turns up, who is he actually talking for? What does it mean if he refuses to rule something out? What real power is there in his confidence? It's the same as needing to know, if Biden offered something, what was the likelihood of it simply being torn up by a returning Trump. The asymmetry comes from scale: the UK and individual EU countries needed to know a lot more about the internal directions of a country six times our size, because those internal directions will very much affect us. It is changing, because the EU is finding its collective voice this time round, whereas in Trump 1 they still had to worry that individual countries might not wish to follow a party line. Now everyone understands the stakes of not having an aligned voice, and the UK is in a position to at least sing the harmony.
indiangenz 5mo ago
[flagged]
- dofm 5mo ago
  It really does not. Honestly, seriously, really does not. There is such a profound international misunderstanding of the law here and what people who actually see prison time for online comments have to have done to get there. Inciting violence online is taken really seriously. Unless it's Elon Musk where we appear to be powerless.
- spacedcowboy 5mo ago
  As opposed to the USA, where having the wrong skin colour gets murdered by police, or shipped off to another country's jail even if you're a citizen. I'm a dual citizen. I choose to live in the UK.
  - pandaman 5mo ago
    >As opposed to the USA, where having the wrong skin colour gets murdered by police I don't think you have, mate.

by dofm 5mo ago

lucasRW 5mo ago

Musk, Vance and Rubio are cheering for Europe to wakeup. Quite the opposite of what you say.

dofm 5mo ago
Explicit US foreign policy seeks to undermine the EU — literally meddling in favour of people who wish to see the EU federally weakened. And Musk argues for violence, including at far-right rallies. This is not some positive, friendly, brotherly call for us to wake up — it's an argument for white supremacy (as most recently outlined by Pete Hegseth, weekend TV anchor turned defence secretary).
- lucasRW 5mo ago
  Hmmm... the only people that have "federally weakened" the EU are those that made that continent much poorer and less powerful than it was 20, 30 years ago. So you are correct partially: the US, throughout the second half of the second century, have seeked to weaken Europe and successfully done so (all indicators are worst now than they've ever been in Europe).

pb7 5mo ago

You have a literal king, so maybe you shouldn't criticize them lest the coppers show up at your doorstep. Our "king" was democratically elected and has so little power he can't even organize a birthday party as you say, let alone do anything else.

dofm 5mo ago
> so maybe you shouldn't criticize them lest the coppers show up at your doorstep. Not sure what you imagine the UK is like but we literally don't have lèse majesté laws, so there is no legal basis for that to happen. It does not happen. (And no, merely saying it online isn't a basis either). Apart from stupid comedy overreactions at the coronation protests that exasperated us all and saw significant pushback (our police lean so firmly against use of force at protests that they sometimes do silly things in the name of stopping "disruption"), we have a rich, varied, centuries-long tradition of being able to soundly criticise our monarchy. Indeed we did so with such efficiency recently that our king actually listened and took his own brother's title, powers and roles away. Meanwhile there are people in the USA fighting lawsuits over being falsely imprisoned for saying true things about Charlie Kirk.
- codeduck 5mo ago
  You're arguing with people who don't understand the word Parliament in the term "Parliamentary Democracy". Just nod, tut, and move on, it will be better for your mental health.
  - dofm 5mo ago
    Funnily enough I am OK about this stuff, these days. It would be absurd to pretend that we don't have problems; we obviously have problems. And things are extremely bad right now, especially with our former transatlantic friends actively agitating the situation. But internationally it has got a lot easier to see our problems with clarity in the last year and a half, and a lot easier to argue that every significant country has its difficulties.
  - SanjayMehta 5mo ago
    They keep saying Trump has been impeached twice but he's still around. Does impeach mean something else in American English? I don't understand why he's labelled as "impeached" when the final outcome was acquitted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_T...

havblue 5mo ago

I doubt there are many people at the Atlantic who voted for Trump and the author has worked for the Economist before. So I'm not sure what you're asking for, unless you're saying he should move back to London if he's to write about the UK.

dofm 5mo ago
Ahh well if he worked for the Economist that explains it. Sorry, I didn't realise. I didn't suggest that Trump voting was the problem. Americans of literally all political persuasions have simply no idea how this country actually works. There is a level of ignorance that is often comical. The reverse is not true in quite the same way. If you were to ask an American to name UK political figures, most cannot. Whereas our coverage of your political system is such that anyone with a passing interest in politics can _really_ get into it on US politics; it's a very asymmmetric experience that is hard to explain.
- pb7 5mo ago
  >Whereas our coverage of your political system is such that anyone with a passing interest in politics can _really_ get into it on US politics; it's a very asymmmetric experience that is hard to explain. I don't share your enthusiasm in this being a good thing. In fact, this is a common problem I've noticed over the last decade in that Europeans feel like they know the US and are qualified to comment on issues by virtue of consuming movies and political media of a certain spin (like all media). You are simply consuming someone's opinion with little to no opportunity to validate it against day to day life.
  - dofm 5mo ago
    Oh I don't think it is a good thing, at all. But this time round in particular, it is absolutely a thing. People in Denmark, for example, have no choice but to understand at some level the internal cabinet politics of the USA. Because they need to know, when JD Vance turns up, who is he actually talking for? What does it mean if he refuses to rule something out? What real power is there in his confidence? It's the same as needing to know, if Biden offered something, what was the likelihood of it simply being torn up by a returning Trump. The asymmetry comes from scale: the UK and individual EU countries needed to know a lot more about the internal directions of a country six times our size, because those internal directions will very much affect us. It is changing, because the EU is finding its collective voice this time round, whereas in Trump 1 they still had to worry that individual countries might not wish to follow a party line. Now everyone understands the stakes of not having an aligned voice, and the UK is in a position to at least sing the harmony.

indiangenz 5mo ago

[flagged]

dofm 5mo ago
It really does not. Honestly, seriously, really does not. There is such a profound international misunderstanding of the law here and what people who actually see prison time for online comments have to have done to get there. Inciting violence online is taken really seriously. Unless it's Elon Musk where we appear to be powerless.
spacedcowboy 5mo ago
As opposed to the USA, where having the wrong skin colour gets murdered by police, or shipped off to another country's jail even if you're a citizen. I'm a dual citizen. I choose to live in the UK.
- pandaman 5mo ago
  >As opposed to the USA, where having the wrong skin colour gets murdered by police I don't think you have, mate.