I was sorry to hear that the Queen died this week. She sat on the throne since 1952, when Harry Truman was in the White House.
Just imagine if the same person had served in the Oval Office for all that time? Losing her seems like a big deal. Like almost everyone else, I cannot remember a time when Elizabeth II was not there.
I met the Queen on a couple of occasions, including one time when I was invited to tea with her - alongside the Prime Minister, Archbishop of Canterbury and the Speaker of the House of Commons – to mark her 90th birthday. (Being the only guest to arrive at Buckingham Palace on foot, it took a while to persuade the doubtful policeman at the gate that I really was on the invitation list….).
Being a Brit living in America, inevitably I get asked what I think about the British system of monarchy compared to the US republican system.
I am a massive admirer of the American Constitution, with its republican virtue, checks and balances and careful dispersal of power. What the Founders crafted in that old courthouse in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 was a near perfect answer to that age old question of how to limit power. It has made America the most successful republic in human history.
But the British, in their more haphazard way, have also found an answer to that same question of how to limit power. Having a hereditary monarch as the source of authority, but devoid of any political power, has served the UK well. The system certainly worked under Elizabeth II – for which we Brits are grateful.
For seventy years, politicians came and went. Various crises came and went. The Queen remained a constant.
In Britain it is possible to jeer the government, but cheer the head of state. You can be passionately opposed to whoever happens to hold elected office, yet still respect the person that personifies the nation. That is why the Queen was such a unifying figure. In an era when politics is ever more divisive, there is something to be said for that.
Here in United States, the most senior elected leader is the head of state. This can mean that a great deal of political scorn and vitriol ends up being aimed at the person that personifies the Republic – with potentially damaging consequences for the Republic. We need to rediscover how to disagree with the President, while at the same time respecting the Office of the President of the United States of America.
I discussed this in more detail on the Jeff Katz Show, and you can listen here:
The Queen & America - Douglas Carswell discusses Elizabeth II on the Jeff Katz Show
Ben Shapiro also invited me on to his show at the beginning of the week, to talk about the new British Prime Minister, the issues with Jackson’s water supply and the Fat Cat report.
