“Yet in Britain we still have — and must hang on to — vital attributes of which America seems to have lost sight: courts that are not politicised, media that entertains more than one point of view, public servants who are impartial, electoral boundaries that are not gerrymandered, politicians who consider their opponents wrong but not criminal, and voters whose readiness to switch between parties shows they are searching more for competence than ideology.” William Hague. The Times.
Indeed, Hague is right. We are divided from America by a common language and a whole lot more. That common language can sometimes fool us into believing we are culturally the same. Far from it. It certainly helps the British traveller in the States – I can engage with a bauxite miner in Nevada (which I once did) rather more easily than I can with one in Brazil ! But it’s not just casual acquaintances. I worked with Shell colleagues in Houston who were superficially like me. But deep down they were utterly different. Verbally we could communicate well (with a little effort on my part). But culturally we were polls apart.
The arrival of Trump has widened the gap. We have had our Bozo politicians (Liz Truss anyone?). But we survive. Trump is, of course, an aberration, especially in his ghastly second term. We’ve not had anything like him. Dei gratia. It’s when politics become a cult that you have to worry. In Britain it happened to an extent with Margaret Thatcher, but we found a way to get rid of her when she went mentally AWOL. Can the US do the same with Trump ? We’ll see.
As English becomes the Lingua Franca of Europe it makes communication differences with we monolingual Brits irrelevant. The educated young Dutchman or Dane is as comfortable in English as he is in his mother tongue. And believe me we have more in common with most Europeans than we do with most Americans.
We made the wrong choice in 2016. Our future is indisputably in Europe not as some distant territory of the United States (which is how Trump sees us). We need to put that right.
Do I still like to be in America? Not under Trump I don’t.
Paddy’s Blogs in a crazy world 
I confess to not liking Americans and their country very much. You are right they have nothing in common with Europeans. It’s a personal prejudice of long standing, going back many years to a holiday in the West Indies. It was was utterly ruined by loud American cruise people who took over my expensive hotel. No matter what you did or where you went they were there. The Thelmas and Stan’s from the Mid-West intent on teling you their lifes history at seven decibels above normal.
I have also disliked their politics ever since the Vietnam War. The stupid, merciless murder of young men and a simple country seeking independence from colonial domination. Now America has the worst President in their history. Trump is determined to rid his nation of it’s liberalism, pluralism and decency. He murders people without judicial process, ruins the poorest of the poors lives. Trump is just about capable of anything including being a Russian mole.
His state visit brings shame upon Britain and sullies the earth the man walks upon. My only available protest is to ignore the entire thing and use the off button on the TV every time they show his ugly face.
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