America loves Winston Churchill. As one educated at a public high school named for Britain’s wartime Prime Minister, I can attest to this. And why wouldn’t we? After all, it was Churchill who, after resisting round-the-clock German air raids in London, and executing one of history’s most magnificent evacuations at Dunkirk, accepted the role of FDR sidekick with full knowledge that WWII victory meant the end of Pax Britannia. If defeat to the Nazis was a ruinous calamity, by the end of the Casablanca Conference of 1943, Churchill could be certain victory came with its own tremendous cost.
One can only imagine how much more difficult and precarious things would have been had Churchill refused to cede Roosevelt and America its leadership role, if he had disputed basic propositions put forward by FDR concerning war planning and post-war cooperation. What if he had instructed Montgomery to give no quarter to US Generals? To abide no plans he felt compromised English superiority? What if he fully refused to be a team player, figuring the Nazi rout at Stalingrad, and Hitler’s frailties had already cast the die? Why invite the Americans to England? Britain first… and always! Events may have unfolded quite a bit differently.
Normandy has long been a proving ground for US Presidents. Reagan, perhaps a B-Lister in Hollywood, but plenty good enough for the bully pulpit, was never better than when he paid tribute to “the boys of Pointe du Hoc” on D-Day’s 40th Anniversary. Ten years later, Bill Clinton raised his game while praising American veterans of the invasion, humbling himself in thanks from a grateful world. Indeed, humility and sincerity are the guiding lights for all world leaders when they speak from the Post-War order’s most hallowed ground.
American exceptionalism at its nucleus is an unapologetic declaration of our intention to rest on the laurels of American sacrifice reflected by places such as Normandy, and men so old and so few they almost surely will all be gone by the next commemoration. It is a constant shrill reminder that, “hey, we could have just sat it out, but we arrived to save the day! You’re welcome!” Whatever spoils America garnered from the blood spilled on French beaches is beside the point; when needed the most, we gave our all. Make no mistake, MAGA is the political embodiment of American exceptionalism’s relentless morphing at the lips of Fox/AM blowhards into a grotesque militancy that labels any humility by US leaders as “surrender” and falling into the role of a “sucker.” Whatever Churchill ceded us for our selflessness wasn’t enough, and the bill remains past due. Several generations of prosperity be damned… what have you done for us lately?!
Churchill’s successors stand at a precipice of the nation’s own misguided creation. Brexit was no more than an English equivalent to American exceptionalism. “We won’t be saddled with the obligations of others! Leave us to our own devices. Britain first, last… always!” Take away Nigel Farage’s accent and complete sentences, and he could be just another Trumpie railing against immigrants and anything resembling constructive cooperation. A nihilist is a nihilist, whichever side of the pond he’s on. Forget leading the world, Britain now can’t even figure out how to abdicate its role as a credible continental partner.
Into this mess came our personification of American exceptionalism’s lazy entitlement, more ignorant and unhelpful than usual. Where Trump goes lying fantasies follow. On the 75th Anniversary of American global leadership the leader of the free world felt it appropriate to delay proceedings while he played his flute for his wretched core back home. Laura Ingraham, who never met a PC-persecuted neo-Nazi she didn’t want to defend, was on cloud nine to oblige. While old and frail heroes cooled their heels, the man who treats NATO members as deadbeats, fabricated a quote by the organization’s Secretary-General, declaring him a savior of the post-war world’s signature alliance. The best anybody could say about his stilted formal D-Day remarks was he pushed back his constant desire to ad-lib, which would have surely produced an international incident.
In Ireland, he couldn’t be bothered to even research what his host’s sensibilities on Brexit and borders were, causing awkward embarrassment as he assumed they were as nasty and xenophobic as he is. Of course, the issue of accommodations became tricky when the President insisted on providing one of his struggling golf clubs US taxpayer dollars to put up his entire retinue. Trump’s policy whims may be utterly unpredictable, but his greed and overt corruption are as faithful as a clock.
Most of England’s electorate appears to now understand what a mistake the Brexit referendum was. If it is permitted to be reintroduced and voted on again, there is little doubt of the result. Yet and still, just like us, they are suffering the consequences of fidelity to democratic principles that yield decisively awful results. Like Churchill, who oversaw the end to a way of life he couldn’t imagine disappearing, Brits now struggle to pull back from populism’s ugliest leanings. In his own perverse way, Trump did England a big solid by vividly reminding them how bad such a Frankenstein can become, further steeling their spines to continue to reassert duty over nihilist self-absorption. It was farcical to see Fox and Friends struggle from their on-location feed to disguise London’s collective disgust for Trump. That they have a far easier time of it here in America should gravely concern us all.