[dofm]

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]

>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]

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.

[BobbyTables2]

Always wondered whether that was driven by desire for enlightenment or one of caution.

If I were in a fine China shop, I would be mindful of the location of the bull running amok.

[dofm]

I mean to some extent we want to understand America because it is where — at least until recently — we all assumed we were culturally headed. When I was a kid there was a strong feeling (incorrect, in retrospect) that the USA was sort of five, ten years ahead on everything good and bad — shopping malls, carphones, hip hop, fashion, cinema, sci-fi. That everything was less expensive and more vibrant and fun. And I think Gen X in particular has grown up feeling that understanding the USA is valuable and enjoyable in that way (because it was). Gen X here in the UK and Europe loved the USA as kids, as the boomers had.

There was a blip during the Bush Jr era where I think our view of the USA fell into a sort of mixture of pity and anger, and we began to understand that there were, from our perspective, two Americas that fall either side of us; one more brash and progressive than us and one that loathed us that we saw as regressive and cruel (overly religious etc.).

Now it has gone from adoration/fascination to horror/fascination, frankly. And the urgency to understand what is happening to the USA is only accelerating, because of the cultural merger of UK/EU and US far right extremism.

During Trump 1 we would say, not all Americans are like that; we'd still be partitioning the USA into the ones we have some recognition for and those who make us feel queasy. We coped with Trump 1 the way we coped with GWB.

Nowadays, I believe you will find that people understand that it doesn't really matter if there are these two Americas; functionally we can no longer treat you as anything other than homogenous.

We cannot trust the USA to share our values or come to our aid even as we host military bases; a USA that can do nothing to stop Elon Musk agitating for violence on our streets is one we do not have positive feelings for, and a USA whose vice president actively denigrates our culture is just so out of the ordinary.

(And as a narrative quirk I think a lot of this has roots in the most simple of stories that illuminated it — that of Harry Dunn, Anne Sacoolas and diplomatic immunity. Trump and Mnuchin handled that so insultingly that it left a lasting impact; Biden had his work cut out to fix it.)

The last time the USA appeared to not be on our side in consequential issues to this extent is when Joseph Kennedy was ambassador. We are back there, now. Back in the late 1930s relationship with the USA that was profoundly distrustful.

It doesn't help that this is actually blended, fully, with growing distrust for the tech industry, which is the biggest cultural challenge of the next decade. We (only partially incorrectly) perceive tech culture's impositions on and disregard for British culture as being American impositions.

I think we accept now that this has happened and it will not be reset; we won't suddenly forget it all in 2029. But we still have to understand you.

[BobbyTables2]

I think a lot of us Yanks are having similar realizations too!

The (US) Civil War seemed like distant history in school. But I’ve come to realize there are a lot of people that still seem to live with the prejudice from those times.

The war ended but the problems never went away. Can’t help but wonder if Reconciliation was such a good idea. One half the country might be quite happy not dealing with the other.

I also used to not understand how Protestants and Catholics could fight (Ireland). Almost seems odd both being Christian. Of course, I was extremely blind to the religious divides long existing here too.

[dofm]

Sectarian divides are always complex if you’re the outsider, I think. Like the Troubles in Ireland, or Hutus vs Tutsis in Rwanda, or Pol Pot’s purges: from the outside it is like, how can they be so immediately sure who is who? Whereas on the inside, your membership of one or other group is always obvious: it’s a socially indelible distinction used to doom people to one or the other, and the smallness of the distinction is often the point. (MAGA vs America First could end up like this)

I used to think that people on the mainland like me could never fully and instinctively understand who was who (and why) in the Troubles. But this week, the problems in Belfast, it is somehow instinctively obvious which side of the old sectarian divide the energy behind that violence is coming from, even though arguably the so-called “justification” (immigration) affects both sides of the Troubles divide more or less equally and the supposed provocation (actually more or less a pretext) happened in an area associated with the other one.

I think most people here in the UK just knew, immediately, from the tone of it.