That’s nothing to do with constitutional roles, it’s a factor of the length of tenure of positions. If Truss has managed to be PM for 70 years I’m pretty sure she would have had a much greater effect on history than she did. There probably wouldn’t be a UK anymore.
No Backsies. You used up the refund policy by sending Piers Morgan back.
Queen Victoria was George III’s granddaughter. Her grandson was George V (if you’ve seen the first Downton Abbey movie, you know who he is). His granddaughter was Elizabeth II.
All of that said, we don’t really know much about what Elizabeth’s political views may have been. I’d argue that Margaret Thatcher had far more influence in creating the neoliberal paradise /s that we live in today than Elizabeth II had.
Possibly not the best example to make your point; after all Liz Truss killed Elizabeth II.
How’s that for impact?
Yep. What will they all do when the ruling military declares curfews and institutes mandatory ID papers and so on and so forth?
Really?
Actually that monarch merely read out a speech written by the government.
There is a difference!
(and a soda to @Kilkrazy )
Actually that monarch merely read out a speech written by the government.
So it is a hologram, then…
That’s nothing to do with constitutional roles
You said the monarch has no real power. I call nonsense because power extends well beyond constitutional authority.
The U.S. Constitution doesn’t carve out a role for billionaires but they sure as hell wield a lot of power here.
Well, England’s monarch is also a billionaire so, I guess?
Is there a meaningful difference here between “military rule” and “leopards eating peoples’ faces”? Because it sure does seem like military rule for thee and all the sweet pleasures for me (until the leopards start eating their faces of course).
Because it sure does seem like military rule for thee and all the sweet pleasures for me (until the leopards start eating their faces of course).
Yes.
My only expression stopped short right before profanity. We all know they will get inline to be kapo even when oppressed. These people love punching down too much to do a sliver of what they claim. If the fascists get their way, these people will get their wish for a brief moment before getting served the same raw deal. We all know fascism is a meat grinder in literal sense and if let to run unopposed, it will reach these turkey voting for christmas eventually.
The problem is they have to go through everyone else first
I’ll bet the number goes down a lot if you flat out ask people if they’re okay with a military dictatorship.
Perhaps because they have been told military dictatorship is bad, much like racist is bad and bigotry is bad, but fail to understand why any of those things are bad, merely the label is bad. So if they can skip all the hard thinking and assume people of a different skin color or religion are bad that is fine as long as no one harmfully applies the racist label to them it is all good.
They can support a strong leader as long as no one tells them they are voting for a military dictatorship because a dictatorship is what the bad people in movies have so they don’t want that…
(Or I’m over generalizing and they do in fact know why other people say dictatorships are bad but just assume because it is “their guy” calling the shots no leopard will eat their face)
It’s still the same monarchy, though… generally speaking.
Yes, very much this.
Also just because the late Queen decided to use only a tiny fraction of the power the position has doesn’t mean it is gone and all future monarchs will rubber stamp what the rest of the government wants.
What happens the first time a future monarch decides not to sign over the inland revenue funds over to the government? Or directly command the military (actually I’m not sure if that is a power they technically have…)
So if they can skip all the hard thinking and assume people of a different skin color or religion are bad that is fine as long as no one harmfully applies the racist label to them it is all good.
Makes sense to me, especially in terms of racism. For most white USians, there’s not much that’s worse than being labeled a racist, and they have little interest in their own actual racism or the ill effects of society-wide racism.
I’m not sure exactly how you would poll/control for this; but I’d be curious how the numbers break down in terms of people who are in favor of the idea think that they’ll get from their strongman. (and what, if any, effect on perception of military rule actual time in the actual military has).
There’s certainly a long strain of denegration of the effectiveness of government generally(by the time St. Ronnie did his ‘fear the person who says they’re from the government and here to help’ he was almost certainly tapping into a preexisting vein, even if the specific cute formulation might have been an original coinage by him or a speechwriter); with an adjacent but more focused “tough-on-crime/victim’s rights” project that’s dedicated to harping on all cases, real when available and imagined where necessary, where some detail of due process conern is seen to have delivered an unsatisfactory result.
There’s also, undeniably, a very real, and downright grotesque, vein of flagrant and more or less entirely unpunished(most fail upwards, and resigning with no further consequences is treated like some sort of radically harsh outcome) elite failure in a variety of areas.
The (comparatively) recent GOP enthusiasm for theatrical ungovernability in congress, sometimes just for its own sake, since chasing social media clout is easier and more fun than doing boring policy nerd stuff, sometimes as a tactical measure because gridlock is close to getting what you want if you desire a crippled federal government or are mostly focused on packing the judiciary and local and state office gerrymandering; also provides a no-conspiracy-theory-needed reason to perceive existing modes of government as ineffectual(it’s the point where you decide that the solution is an Action Junta or Supreme Generalissimo rather than voting against deliberately ineffective legislators where you are leaving the empirically justified zone; not when you merely perceive ineffective legislators)
What’s less clear, though, is what part of this people expect Strong Leader With Vigorous Gun Mans to address: do they actually think that the military is just an untapped well of broad-spectrum competence that would slot neatly into various areas of civil administration and just do them better? Is it the old theory that expertise is actually a con bubbling back up; and they don’t think that the problems are actually that hard(common sense!), but have just been obfuscated by self-serving ‘experts’, so will magically become simple and clear once you take some of those out back and shoot them? Is there no actual expectation that competent governance is possible; but at least if we stop listening to defense attorneys and bleeding hearts we can take comfort in our precarious existences knowing that “crime” is being summarily taken to the camps rather than coddled?
I think, as happened in Russia and Saudi Arabia, oligarchs are good with the concept of a dictatorship, but may soon find themselves impoverished and imprisoned. As pretty boy Floyd allegedly said, “that’s where the money is”. Any dictator with enough power and no restraint is going to be happy to loot the 1% before you can say “I miss the Rule of Law”.
100s of kleptocrats have agreed! Though not until right at that moment when they find themselves plunging out a window.