By Rudy Barnes, Jr., October 4, 2025
Trump made an official visit to Britain recently and seemed right at home with the grandiose privileges of monarchy--even though Britain is a democracy. We need to remember that the American colonies fought a revolutionary war to be free of British power. If Trump’s vision of America represents following the example of Britain it may portend another civil war.
Freedom is in decline with radical right demagogues in America, Israel and Russia. In seeking to expand their power, they seem to have forgotten the lessons of history and are likely doomed to repeat those painful lessons in legitimacy. Democracies are not a panacea. Trump, Netanyahu and Putin became demagogues in putative democracies. Will people ever learn?
After an initial period of power and prosperity, despotic democracies in America, Israel, and Russia are becoming the rule rather than the exception. No powerful and affluent democracies have survived the initial lure of materialism, hedonism and greed of human depravity that have “trumped” altruism in their politics.
With the demise of America, China is the likely hegemon. Putin is seeking to restore the Russian empire while Ukraine is fighting for its independence, and a Zionist Israel has resorted to the genocide of Palestinians to expand its borders. Demagogues now control politics in America, Russia and Israel, and they have used religion to promote their corrupt regimes.
“Ben Rhodes has used Britain as a warning of what America could become. Trump’s second term has embodied the cruder approach of taking control. Grabbing what can be got for the sake of what is to be got. There is no pretense of democratic values. The considerable powers of the state have been leveraged to reward Trump and his associates, punish his foes and elevate a largely white, Christian, conservative American identity: to “take back control.”
“We cannot turn back the clock. Democracies will be increasingly diverse, no matter what politicians say. The American and British people will continue to suffer, enthralled by the siren song of blood-and-soil nationalism and imperial nostalgia. The challenge for those who rightly fear this approach is to reclaim the better aspects of our stories as a source of identity and accountability, not supremacy.”
“Both of our countries have benefited when we strove to represent something bigger than a narrow conception of nationalism. And both countries can retain a sense of pride and patriotism about the better aspects of our past without whitewashing or clinging to it. That requires leaders who embrace societal change instead of fearing it.
Winston Churchill once described democracy as the worst form of government, except for all the others. But no pluralistic democracy can be sustained without a moral culture based on providing for the common good. That’s a big order for cultures corrupted by materialism, hedonism and greed. America will have to go back to the future more than 250 years ago to find it.
Notes:
“Ben Rhodes has used Britain as a warning of what America could become. President Trump’s visit to Britain was designed to flatter with imperial imagery: Windsor Castle, a carriage ride, flyovers, a glimpse at the Churchill archives at Chequers, the prime minister’s country estate. This pageantry veiled the reality that Britain is no longer the superpower of these symbols. Of course, the nostalgic diplomacy serves a purpose. For Trump, it sates his thirst for validation as the predominant Western leader, with the British establishment genuflecting before him as so many powerful American institutions have done since his re-election. For Prime Minister Keir Starmer, it continues a careful strategy of avoiding worse outcomes on tariffs and the war in Ukraine while showing that Britain has a foot in the door on technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Yet underneath the surface, both the United States and Britain are suffering through crises of identity. For two centuries, London and Washington were the seats of empire, the vanguard of the West, the proselytizers of liberal democracy. Our leaders used to meet to shape the direction of world events; now the balance of global power is shifting to the East. Our leaders used to reaffirm a story of shared democratic values; now the United States has taken an authoritarian turn, and Mr. Starmer is struggling to prevent Britain from doing the same.As our nations go through a crucible of change, it is no wonder that our people are anxious and unmoored, our politics destabilized.
In the summer of 2016, British voters severed their relationship with the European Union, motivated by a nationalist backlash to globalization. A few months later, American voters stepped into the same undertow, electing a president who railed against immigration and international norms, institutions and obligations. Within a matter of months, both nations turned against their own stories.
Are the American and the British people better off than they were before 2016? They are still polarized and pessimistic. Rampant inequality and overburdened safety nets feel beyond the control of governments. Global conflicts have escalated, from wars in Europe and the Middle East to trade wars and tensions with China. Post-Brexit Britain should offer a cautionary tale to America about the dangers of isolationism dressed up as exceptionalism.
“Separated from Europe, the value of British citizenship has shrunk. Growth has stagnated. And the social welfare state has continued to depend upon migrant labor. Trump and Mr. Starmer will be judged on whether they can fend off this resilient far right with a return to normalcy: sober leadership, stricter border enforcement and the pursuit of better economic indicators. Given our long and intertwined history, there is much that can and should bring the United States and Britain together. But the special relationship should be rooted in learning from our shared past,” not by going back to the future more than 250 years ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/opinion/trump-britain-state-visit.html.
