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American politics is an oddly global phenomenon, with its elections and issues often dominating news coverage on even our own national broadcasts. If Joe Biden just so happens to find some new load of classified documents, or Donald Trump says or does something inflammatory, potentially illegal, or more; you will hear about it almost as soon as the American people hear it, perhaps even before they ever hear it. This phenomenon has largely been a plague on British politics, with it becoming increasingly clear that many people in Britain, as well as a number of people across the globe, wish to LARP (live action role play) as Americans and campaign about American issues, usually because America is just more ‘exciting’, even when such issues are usually rather distant to Britain.
Abortion, something largely settled in the UK, is one of the go-to examples of this phenomenon. When the American Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade last year, there was a justifiable global reaction, but a certain British reaction was something utterly unusual in a normal country. No law was being proposed that threatened abortion, nor does the UK Supreme Court have the ability to overturn already existing legislation in this country even if they wanted to, nor is there a powerful or active movement to change anything. So why exactly much of the British public felt the need to lambast the Tories and everyone else over nothing was hard to explain without reference to things happening in America.
From this ruling, America was back to being an exciting place where things changed constantly, a political dynamism defined the environment. When compared against the dull, dreary and utterly pathetic backdrop of British politics, it becomes clear why this reaction occurred. British politics is just not interesting enough, with its issues being that of a settled country whose institutions are showing signs of degrading due to age. Yet America, even when seen to be failing, is always an interesting escape – an escape in the all-consuming TV drama kind of way. No matter the faux-solemn faces on all the media pundits, or the somewhat ominous, mass-produced signs of the activists, it was clear they enjoyed this new dynamism far more than the environment that had existed previously. For us political types are just a highly specialised form of adrenaline junkie, addicted to chasing that rush of novel excitement to its long drawn out conclusion.
Yet in every instance, when the event has some deeper temporal distance from us and the reality hits that we are not American and that we have no real say in American politics, there is the brutal realisation that our real country is simply less exciting than America, and so a clear frustration forms. The frustration of deeply caring about a certain issue but being unable to do anything, the result of having placed yourself so far into the role and form of an American to have tricked yourself into believing you were one, even if it is just for a few days or even just a few hours.
This frustration can express itself in two forms, and there is the choice between dispersing the built up energy, leading to a temporary burnout/disillusionment in the activist. Or our apparently favoured option, achieving true catharsis through the power of projection, reaching into the realms of absurdity to allow yourself to take out that frustration on Britain and its political landscape. One begins grafting on random issues to the British consciousness as to exhaust the tank of frustration. Abortion, gun rights, etc. It does not really matter which issue it is, or how relevant it is to Britain, it becomes a necessary part of political dialogue to express and live out your frustration about the issue, because that’s what America is either currently doing – or at least should be doing.
The first of these two options is the clear healthier option that we should seek wholeheartedly, as it is the only way that this country can have a healthy political dialogue. Where everyone is engaged and cares about the topics at hand to us here in Britain, and not unhelpfully staring off into the far distance – striking out every so often at anyone who happens to be around you. If the only times we Brits discuss abortion or firearms is when discussed in the context of American political disputes, which is so often the case, it is unclear why our discourse and political reality wouldn’t shift towards that of the United States. This can already be seen to be happening in the use of language and the holding of some popular American political sentiments among many young people, sentiments that have been slowly diffused into our own political culture through the internet. So, this move towards an Americanised future which, though more exciting, is hardly what I imagine many in Britain would enjoy living under.
That isn’t to say that American issues aren’t important, or that we as Brits shouldn’t be informed and aware of American politics, but that it has gone too far and we are simply dragging ourselves into deeper frustration with our continued over-engagement.
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