The US Political System: A View from the Confused UK>

I currently reside in the UK, but lived in the US for much of my life. Many Brits I know or have overheard in pubs find the US political system extremely confusing. Trump's attack on Iran has prompted new questions about it; notably his ability to start a war without the approval of the so-called representatives of the people: Congress. OK, I know Brits find other things American confusing, like baseball and American football, just as most Americans find cricket, rugby, and FIFA football confusing. As George Bernard Shaw put it, "The English and the Americans are two great peoples separated by a common language." 

Brits are expressing their confusion about US politics more often in the Trumpian Era, because Trump is in the UK news 24/7. Many of the Brits' comments since November 2024 relate to the question, How did the US "elect" such a despicable charlatan twice? What about learning from experience? Why can't they get rid of him? An American could reply, "Hey, UK voters made another charlatan, Boris Johnson, prime minister." That's true, but there is this difference: when enough people in the UK realized what a bloviating, bullshitting, devious narcissist Johnson was, they sent him packing. His own party did, in fact, responding to angry public opinion. In fact, the Tories got rid of four PMs in 14 years. The voters turned out a fifth in 2024. That's one advantage the parliamentary system has over the presidential system. Prime ministers serve at the pleasure of the party in power. The party in power can jettison their leader at any time, if they become sufficiently toxic to the voters. Presidents serve fixed terms. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to get rid of one before the next election, no matter how incompetent or vile.

The Conservatives (Tories) allowed their members to pick Johnson's successor. The members tend to be extreme in their views, and opt for candidates with extreme views -- and limited ability. That made Liz Truss the perfect choice. She managed to nearly destroy the UK economy in just a few weeks. Tory MPs could not get her out the door fast enough. 

Back to the UK view of US politics. The most common question after the 2016 election was, Why didn't Hilary Clinton get elected? She got 3 million more votes than Trump did. In order to answer that question, I had to try to explain role of the Electoral College in presidential elections. Despite its name, it has no connection with education, much less wisdom. Have you ever tried to explain the English Wars of the Roses to glassy-eyed, hungover undergraduates? I have. I don't recommend it. 

I have explained to astonished British listeners how the Founding Fathers created the Electoral College to prevent the US from becoming a democracy. I must add many Americans are also astonished to learn that the Founders were opposed to democracy. The Founders feared that the "people" would elect some nut who would threaten "property," including human property. The EC, you see, does not represent the "people." It represents the states, each of which has a certain number of "electoral" votes, based on their population.  

Three times in US history presidential candidates who lost the popular vote have become president, because they got a majority of electoral votes. The most recent time was in 2016, when the Electoral College assured the "election" of a nut who wants to restore slavery and admires Hitler. Trump still claims he won the popular vote in 2016, just as he continues to claim he won the 2020 election, not Biden.

Yes, the Founding Fathers wanted a republic but not a democracy. And they are not the same thing. A country can be a democratic republic. It can be an undemocratic republic. It can also be a democratic monarchy, like the UK and quite a few European countries. The monarchs in these countries have no real power. They are titular heads of state. 

Of course, all this was not enough to explain what enabled Trump's rise to power, or why he remains there despite his incompetent and criminal behavior. There were many more questions to answer.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks!

Whatever Happened to the Whigs?

In a recent post I explained why British Conservatives are known colloquially as "Tories." The name goes back to 17th century British politics, as does the name "Whig." The Whigs represented the rival party or outlook to that of the Tories. "Tory" remains in common use politically in the UK, but "Whig" has disappeared. Why is that?

The names Whig and Tory emerged at the end of the 1670s during what became known as the Exclusion Crisis. The crisis arose from the efforts of some leading politicians to exclude James Stuart, Duke of York, from following his brother Charles II to the throne. 

Charles had fathered no legitimate heir. According to the normal rules of succession, James was next in line to be monarch. Supporters of James called his opponents Whigs, then a term denoting a sect of extreme Scots Protestants.

The Tories were firm supporters of strict hereditary succession. They defended James's right to succeed Charles, despite the fact he had converted to the Roman Catholic faith. 

The Tories were also firm supporters of the Protestant Church of England, so the choice was not easy. The great majority of the British people then were not only Protestant but fervently "anti-papist." Many of them belonged to recently emerged and politically radical sects like Baptists and Congregationalists. Whig efforts to prevent James from becoming king thus rested on broad public support.

But the Tories and the King prevented the Whig Exclusion Bill from being enacted in Parliament. In the aftermath, the Whigs were greatly weakened. Their leader Lord Shaftesbury fled to the Netherlands, where he died shortly after. [Image: Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury]. 

James became king upon Charles' death in 1685, but his reign was short. He appointed Catholic allies to key positions in the government, the army and navy, and the courts. Some leading Tories, fearing that he intended to restore Catholicism as the established religion, turned against him. 

They joined with leading Whigs who feared James intended to rule as an absolute Catholic monarch in the style of Louis XIV of France. At the time, large numbers French Protestants (Huguenots) were migrating into England, bringing tales of their persecution in France. 

The timing could not have been worse for James. The same was true of the recent birth of a son to James and his second, Catholic wife. James had two Protestant daughters from his first marriage, Mary and Anne, but the male baby would take precedence in the line of succession.  

With the prospect of a Catholic dynasty before them, a group of Whig and Tory leaders secretly appealed to William of Orange, the Protestant Stadtholder of the Netherlands, to intervene. William was married to James' eldest daughter Mary, and was himself descended from Charles I. 

William concocted a bold and risky plan. He assembled an army and fleet and landed them in the West of England on November 5, 1688.  He began a march toward London. James prepared for battle but lost his nerve and fled to France. Thus began the "Glorious Revolution."

After a great deal of negotiation, Parliament installed William and Mary as joint monarchs. The arrangement was a clear violation of the law of hereditary succession and laid the ground for future conflicts. Parliament, not God, had decided who should rule.

William at first employed both Tories and Whigs in his government. But he gradually leaned more heavily on the Whigs, who were more comfortable with the results of the "Revolution." 

Whig dominance in British politics increased in the early 18th century after the death of Queen Anne (1702-1714). Anne was the last of the Protestant Stuart line. She had many children, but all died at birth or not long after. [Image: Queen Anne]

Parliament addressed this issue at the beginning of her reign with an Act of Succession. It declared that on her death the Crown should pass to her closest Protestant relative. At the time that was a German princess, Sophia of Hanover. 

Sophia died before Anne, however. Her son George became King of England and Scotland in 1714. George suspected that the Tories were behind efforts to restore the Catholic Stuarts to the throne. Some were. He and his son George II generally chose their ministers from the Whigs. 

The period 1714-1760 is often known as the Whig Supremacy, so dominant were Whig politicians. The Tories were virtually eliminated as a political force. It was not until the early 19th century that a new Tory Party emerged and held power. It changed its name officially to Conservative in the 1830s, but the old name stuck.

The use of Whig as a political term, however, gradually disappeared. In part this was due to the emergence of a lose group of Radicals who favored extension of democracy and modernization. It was also due to a split in the Conservative Party. The key issue was free trade, which some Tories supported, and others opposed. The division came to a head in 1846, during the Irish Famine. 

The Tory Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, decided that it was necessary to abolish the Corn Laws (tariffs on imported grain) to ensure supplies of food for the masses. The majority of Tories opposed him. His free trade bill passed only with the support of Whigs and Radicals. 

The Tory majority kicked Peel and his supporters out of the party. For a time, they sat together as "Peelites." In the 1850s, they gradually merged with the Whigs and Radicals to form what became known as the Liberal Party. 

The Liberals enjoyed great political success during the next few decades, especially under the leadership of William Gladstone. But "Whig" soon disappeared from political usage in the UK. [Image: W. E. Gladstone]

PS. In other posts I have referred to the use of "Whig" and "Tory" in the context of the American Revolution. I should add that in the 19th century, a Whig Party thrived in the USA between the 1830s and 1850s. The Whigs were the rivals of the Jacksonian Democrats. Their party fell apart in the early 1850s.Its place was taken by the new Republican Party that elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860. In Liberia, the "True Whig Party" was the dominant party for about a century after being founded in 1869. In recent decades, post-modern historians have used the term "Whig" to describe a progressive, linear, triumphal concept of history. 

 

        

   

  

  

Gladstone v. Disraeli: The Great Victorian Rivalry

[Above: Punch cartoon of Disraeli on left, and Gladstone as two characters from an operetta by Burnand and Sullivan]

William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli ("Dizzy") both served as Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom in the late Victorian era. Gladstone held the premiership on four separate occasions, more than other PM in British history. Disraeli held the highest office twice. 

Both were men of great ability. They were also bitter rivals, who hated one another. Gladstone considered Disraeli to be devoid of any political principle beyond personal ambition. "The Tory Party," Gladstone claimed, "had principles by which it would and did stand for good and for bad, but all this Dizzy has destroyed." Disraeli, he more than implied, was a mere opportunist. To some extent, that was true. On one occasion he told a fellow Tory, "Damn your principles! Stick to your party."

Disraeli returned Gladstone's criticism with interest. Gladstone, he once said "has not a single redeeming defect." Asked to define the difference between a misfortune and a calamity, Disraeli replied, " If Mr. Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. If someone fished him out again, that would be a calamity." Gladstone, he said was an "unprincipled maniac ... [an] extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy, and superstition."

Personality wise, they were very different. Gladstone was moralistic and serious. He was an excellent speaker who coined many lofty and oft repeated phrases, such as 

"Justice delayed is justice denied."

"Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right."

"National injustice is the surest road to national downfall."

"Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race."

"We look forward to the time when the Power of Love replaces the Love of Power."

"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear."

He was also long-winded. Some of Gladstone's contemporaries decried his long detailed speeches and apparent lack of humor  His wife once wrote him, "If you weren't such a great man, you'd be a terrible bore." Queen Victoria came to despise the cold way he addressed her: "Mr. Gladstone speaks to me as if were a lamppost," she wrote. [Below: Gladstone in 1879, portrait by John Everett Millais]

Disraeli, by contrast was witty and fun loving. On one occasion, having been reproved by the Speaker of the House of Commons for saying that half of the cabinet were asses, he replied, "Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my claim that half of the cabinet are asses -- half of the cabinet are not asses." On first becoming Prime Minister in 1867, he announced jokingly, "I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole."

Disraeli mastered something Gladstone never could: flattery. Victoria came to love Dizzy because he fawned on her, treated her as a woman and a great woman at that. He delighted her by arranging her to receive the title "Empress of India." Of their relationship, he wrote, "Everyone likes flattery; and when it comes to royals, you should lay it on with a trowel." [Below: photo of Disraeli, 1873]

The two men differed considerably on many key issues of the day. Gladstone was a reluctant imperialist, Disraeli an enthusiastic one. Gladstone was a devout Anglican but championed freedom of religion. 

Dizzy, who was of Jewish heritage but raised as an Anglican, defended stoutly the privileges of the state Church of England. It may have been out of conviction, but more likely it was for political reasons. It was an essential stance for a Victorian Tory leader. 

Gladstone championed the political rights of the masses but often turned a blind eye to their social needs. He was a fiscal conservative and an economic liberal who condemned anything he considered socialistic. Freedom, for Gladstone, meant freedom from political oppression and economic restraints. People should be provided with opportunities to compete, but not aided by government. In Victorian terms, he favored laissez-faire economics. But he also campaigned fervently for the extension of political rights to the working class. 

Once he became convinced of an injustice, Gladstone could devote himself to removing it. A case in point is Ireland. In the 1840s, at the time of the Irish Famine, he wrote,  "Ireland! That cloud in the west! That coming storm." He crafted numerous acts designed to remove glaring injustices, believing it was the only way to make the Irish loyal to the UK. 

In the end, it was not enough. In the 1880s, he declared "We are bound to lose Ireland in consequence of years of cruelty, stupidity, and misgovernment, and I would rather lose her as a friend than as a foe." He attempted. and failed, to pass a Home Rule Bill that would have given Ireland a large degree of autonomy. The effort cost him his political leadership. A large part of his own party deserted him. 

Parliament enacted Home Rule in 1914, but the outbreak of WWI delayed its implementation. When the war ended four years later, Home Rule became irrelevant. Most of Ireland opted for and fought for, independence. 

Disraeli was more pragmatic about such issues. He championed selective government intervention to improve working class housing and working conditions, to regulate the sale of food and drugs, and to enact uniform sanitary codes. He introduced the first Workmen's Compensation Act in 1875.

In his first term as PM Disraeli tried to outflank Gladstone by introducing legislation to expand the suffrage to some of the working class. The move shocked many in his own party, who had long opposed any move toward democracy. Disraeli understood that the world was changing and that the Tories had to change with it. 

The Reform Act of 1867 turned out to be more radical than his original proposal, partly because Gladstone and the Liberals proposed a number of democratic amendments. To the consternation of many Conservative MPs, Disraeli accepted most of them. He knew he would need Liberal votes to get the bill passed.

Disraeli hoped and expected to benefit from the Reform Act. He called an election, but Gladstone won a large majority. The new voters gave credit for the Act to the Liberals. In time, Disraeli was credited as the father of "Tory Democracy" who had dragged the party some way into the modern world. Gladstone later introduced a bill that gave the vote to all adult male heads of households. Despite their rivalry and their failings, they both contributed to the democratization and modernization of the UK in different ways.