aseriousman
Virgin
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2023
- Posts
- 5
I don’t like reading long posts, much less writing them, but fuck it, this is my first post on this forum, so I have a lot more to say than usual.
I was born in the UK, studied in the US, and then moved back to the UK, where I now live. My sisters, who are now in their 60’s and 70s, both emigrated to the US in the early 1970’s, and have both been US citizens for the last 50 years, and raised families there. They have, between them voted in elections for both Republican and Democrat Presidential candidates (Carter, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Biden). Similarly, in the UK, I’ve voted both Conservative and Labour in past elections. In the upcoming US election my sisters are both voting for Harris, for different reasons: One of them is firmly Democrat, the other is a Never-Trumper Republican.
I listen to and respect both of their views, but from the UK I see the US and its politics very differently than either of them.
One of the first things that strikes me and other Brits about the US is the difference in our attitudes to wealth:
The US is aspirational, and admires wealthy people, while here, we mistrust rich people, more likely to see them as crooked, selfish and corrupt if they’re self-made, or, if they are born into money, as entitled members of the upper class, and unfair inheritors of the ill-gotten wealth handed down from robber-barons. We certainly don’t admire them.
People in the US mistrust government, don’t like taxation and nationalized infrastructure, preferring private enterprise to centralized initiatives. Under Thatcher, the UK went a long way towards Reaganomics, privatising our nationalized telecom, and building commercial alternatives to the NHS (National Health Service), but generally we see nationalized organizations that are necessary for society, like healthcare, power, rail, road and communication infrastructure, as practical things to spend our tax money on. Of course, being much smaller than the US, nationalized industries are easier to implement here.
People in the UK value freedom of speech and personal privacy less than they do in the US, which enshrines it in the constitution. We’re less concerned about surveillance and encroachment into our private lives, and are willing to tolerate more state intervention by the police. We’re willing to sacrifice more personal freedom for the sake of law and order than people in the US.
It’s debatable, but the UK is probably less fixated on racial identity than the US. Instead, we tend to use “social class” as a group identifier – a black working-class person might feel more similar to a white working-class person than they do to a black middle-class person. But, with 13% of UK people being Muslim, there is probably more anti-Muslim sentiment here than in the US - among both Christian black people as well as white people. Antisemitism is pretty minor in the UK, as it is in the US.
I’ve heard US commentators say that misogyny is one reason why Harris is less popular than she could be. That surprises me, but I guess it’s possible. If it is true, it’s probably a sign that the US, like Russia with Putin, and Hungary with Orban, likes a “strong man” in charge.
One thing that the US and the UK have in common is the breakdown of the old division between Left and Right, which is something that the mainstream media has been really slow to understand: They still like to label factions as “left wing” or “right wing” extremist when in reality that no longer applies. The division now is more about how much trust people have in the current social order. People from both the “right” and “left” of politics who are disillusioned with the existing institutions of society, are now siding with anti-establishment groups. I see Trump in the US and Nigel Farage in the UK as focus points for these people – which is a shame, because, although I can sympathise with people’s loss of trust in the “system”, it’s pretty clear to me that both of those guys are crooked and cynical, using that feeling for their own ends.
As to elections, the US and the UK both have rather “unfair” systems. For the US states, and for the UK as a whole, we use the “first past the post” system, and in the US there’s the “electoral college” with all its gerrymandering problems and legacy of disproportionate vote weights, something my Californian sister always moans about.
I’m interested to get a take on what I’ve said from people both from the UK and from the US.
I was born in the UK, studied in the US, and then moved back to the UK, where I now live. My sisters, who are now in their 60’s and 70s, both emigrated to the US in the early 1970’s, and have both been US citizens for the last 50 years, and raised families there. They have, between them voted in elections for both Republican and Democrat Presidential candidates (Carter, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Biden). Similarly, in the UK, I’ve voted both Conservative and Labour in past elections. In the upcoming US election my sisters are both voting for Harris, for different reasons: One of them is firmly Democrat, the other is a Never-Trumper Republican.
I listen to and respect both of their views, but from the UK I see the US and its politics very differently than either of them.
One of the first things that strikes me and other Brits about the US is the difference in our attitudes to wealth:
The US is aspirational, and admires wealthy people, while here, we mistrust rich people, more likely to see them as crooked, selfish and corrupt if they’re self-made, or, if they are born into money, as entitled members of the upper class, and unfair inheritors of the ill-gotten wealth handed down from robber-barons. We certainly don’t admire them.
People in the US mistrust government, don’t like taxation and nationalized infrastructure, preferring private enterprise to centralized initiatives. Under Thatcher, the UK went a long way towards Reaganomics, privatising our nationalized telecom, and building commercial alternatives to the NHS (National Health Service), but generally we see nationalized organizations that are necessary for society, like healthcare, power, rail, road and communication infrastructure, as practical things to spend our tax money on. Of course, being much smaller than the US, nationalized industries are easier to implement here.
People in the UK value freedom of speech and personal privacy less than they do in the US, which enshrines it in the constitution. We’re less concerned about surveillance and encroachment into our private lives, and are willing to tolerate more state intervention by the police. We’re willing to sacrifice more personal freedom for the sake of law and order than people in the US.
It’s debatable, but the UK is probably less fixated on racial identity than the US. Instead, we tend to use “social class” as a group identifier – a black working-class person might feel more similar to a white working-class person than they do to a black middle-class person. But, with 13% of UK people being Muslim, there is probably more anti-Muslim sentiment here than in the US - among both Christian black people as well as white people. Antisemitism is pretty minor in the UK, as it is in the US.
I’ve heard US commentators say that misogyny is one reason why Harris is less popular than she could be. That surprises me, but I guess it’s possible. If it is true, it’s probably a sign that the US, like Russia with Putin, and Hungary with Orban, likes a “strong man” in charge.
One thing that the US and the UK have in common is the breakdown of the old division between Left and Right, which is something that the mainstream media has been really slow to understand: They still like to label factions as “left wing” or “right wing” extremist when in reality that no longer applies. The division now is more about how much trust people have in the current social order. People from both the “right” and “left” of politics who are disillusioned with the existing institutions of society, are now siding with anti-establishment groups. I see Trump in the US and Nigel Farage in the UK as focus points for these people – which is a shame, because, although I can sympathise with people’s loss of trust in the “system”, it’s pretty clear to me that both of those guys are crooked and cynical, using that feeling for their own ends.
As to elections, the US and the UK both have rather “unfair” systems. For the US states, and for the UK as a whole, we use the “first past the post” system, and in the US there’s the “electoral college” with all its gerrymandering problems and legacy of disproportionate vote weights, something my Californian sister always moans about.
I’m interested to get a take on what I’ve said from people both from the UK and from the US.
