British audience laughs when the US is described as a democracy
Who should Keir Starmer cosy up to – the US or China?
On the BBC’s topical debate show, Question Time, they were discussing Keir Starmer’s recent trip to China. The question was “Who should Keir Starmer cosy up to - the US or China?”
Someone in the audience had said “at least with China you know what’s going on with them whereas with America, with Trump especially, every day something wacky comes out, whether it’s buying Greenland or the stuff happening with ICE so personally I’d much rather be in China’s bed at the moment rather than America’s.”
The Conservative MP on the panel said “there’s a big difference between China and the US: China is a dictatorship, the US is a democracy…” That’s when the audience laughed and someone could be heard exclaiming “really!?”
What wasn’t clear from the laughter was why people no longer regard the US as a democracy. The ICE actions in Minneapolis have been pretty extensively reported in the UK, particularly the two murders, and of course British people can’t help but see a lot of American content when we go on YouTube or social media. Seeing masked and armed government agents kitted out like soldiers, pepper spraying people and dragging people out of their cars makes the US look like one of those shithole countries Trump always bangs on about. Seeing him being all chummy with Putin and that guy from El Salvador and other authoritarian leaders only adds to that. Hearing him dictate to our prime minister and to the leaders of America’s supposed democratic allies - well, that’s what dictators do, isn’t it? They dictate. He comes across like he’s an emperor and countries like Britain have to pay homage and show gratitude.
We also saw the events of 6th January 2021 when a mob stormed the Capitol building, apparently prompted by Trump. We heard his claims that the election was rigged, that he really won, and we’re hearing those claims again, seeing the FBI raid an elections office in Georgia.
Question Time has a pretty politically switched-on audience so you might not get that kind of response if you stopped someone in the street and asked them if America is a democracy. That person in the street would probably say “yeah, I suppose it is, but they picked a right nutter last time, didn’t they?” The Question Time audience might not think the US has completely ceased to be a democracy, that it’s on a par with China, but to trot out a statement like “the US is a democracy” without any qualification now comes across as jarring.
You could have said that sort of thing a decade ago and no one would have batted an eyelid. Even during the George W Bush presidency, and despite the Florida 2000 hanging chads, the US was broadly seen as a democracy, albeit an imperfect one.
Trump really isn’t popular in Britain. A YouGov poll conducted in December found 18% of Britons had a favourable opinion of Donald Trump whilst 77% had an unfavourable opinion. Another YouGov poll finds only 13% think he’s been a good president whilst 51% think he’s been a terrible president. As Trump would say, “people have never seen numbers like that.” Not that those numbers would bother Trump’s base if they were to hear about them. They might see his unpopularity as a good thing. We Europeans only like the American presidents we can take advantage of after all. Being disliked overseas is just a sign that he’s putting America first. It’s better to be respected and maybe feared somewhat than to be liked.
Despite the woman in the audience saying Britain’s a small country, it isn’t really. Although on a map it’s not that big, not nearly as big as Greenland, it is the sixth largest economy in the world. What Mark Carney would call a middle-sized country.
If Britain isn’t the only middle-sized country to tilt away from the US towards China that’s going to have an impact on America’s economy, and on China’s for that matter. America’s strength has been in part down to middle-sized countries like the UK wanting to trade with it, seeing it as a stable, decent and mostly law-abiding nation. We and our businesses could say “you know where you are with America”. We really don’t know where we are with America now, and we have some pride.
I don’t want to see a British prime minister sucking up to Trump, even if that costs us. I also don’t want to see us sucking up to China, nor really supporting China in any way. Its human rights abuses are appalling. But we have a huge market on our doorstep: the European Union. We should be cosying up to them, and better still, we should be rejoining them, if they’ll have us, or at least rejoining the single market and the customs union. As part of the EU we wouldn’t be having to choose which of the big players we have to kowtow to. We’d be one of the big players.
The defining feature of US democracy a few decades ago, was both sides would argue, maybe compromise, vote, and be relatively satisfied the process had worked. Today it's an all out war where both sides are using whatever means to their desired ends -- lawfare, civil disobedience, executive action, etc. Yes a democracy still, but no longer in spirit, as we once knew it.