My friend Katty Kay tells the Daily Beast that the inauguration makes her feel unwell.
Why am I coming over all queasy this week? Oh, yes, it must be coronation--sorry, inauguration--week in the federation of the United States. So this is why you booted us out a couple of centuries ago. You simply replaced the pomp and ceremony of hereditary monarchy and with the pomp and ceremony of elected monarchy. OK, you didn't opt for the dynastic duo of Bush and Clinton, which really had us scratching our crowned European heads, but the fanfare with which Caroline Kennedy has entered the political picture suggests your infatuation with royal families is still not over
This week Washington feels like London in the run up to one of our own grand royal events. Hostesses twitter on the phone, or just Twitter, to woo A-list guests to pre- and post-inauguration parties. A-list guests measure their piles of invites in feet, not inches (forget the endangered rain forest, this event justifies a few more trees), while the lowly populous frets over inaugural road closures and inconvenient security measures. The problem is, you've adopted circumstance without the scandal. Our royals do it much better.
My wife drew my attention to the piece, possibly expecting me to agree with it.
As I write, CNN is showing pictures of Barack and Michelle in their evening wear, intercut with animated analysis of the outfits the daughters wore for the big day. This evening my living room has been taken over by American friends. Switching off this drivel is out of the question if I don't want to be thrown out of my own home.
So I can see what Katty is talking about. Nonetheless I think she gets it wrong. America reveres its system of government much more than any of the individuals who occupy its highest office--more, even, than it loves Barack Obama at the start of the honeymoon. This is the crucial thing.
No doubt deference to this constitutional order can be carried too far. (Thinking about what the constitution permits or forbids often seems to stand in for thinking about what is wise or ethical, regardless of what the constitution might say.) Nonetheless this document and the system it describes is a kind of living miracle. Americans feel that they own their government; the British, I think, have no such feeling. The inauguration is partly, if not mainly, a celebration of popular sovereignty. There is nothing of this idea in Britain's infantile obsession with the royal family. How could there be? The monarchy is an affront to the very notion.
Katty thinks Britain might be on to something in retaining a powerless monarchy as a dedicated vessel for the nation's "ceremonial hopes" while regarding the prime minister as no more than hired help. No need to stand up for the man when he walks in. There's freedom.
But what are these "ceremonial hopes"? Another word is "illusions". And as it happens a British prime minister has far more unchecked power at home than any American president. In all the ways that matter, the implication that Britain is better at keeping its leaders in their place is nonsense. Katty says: "Barack Obama has a four-year rental on the White House. We would do well to remember he doesn't possess the freehold." Really, this is something no American needs to be reminded of, least of all on the day of the inauguration.
Yes, the celebrations started far too early and they were covered with the pitiless maniac intensity of the American broadcast media. And yes, the country is infatuated with brainless celebrity--but which country is not? Britain? Please.
As I said in my previous post, I thought the inauguration itself was a splendid and uplifting occasion: the United States at its best and most admirable.
The coronation f a British Monarch is a unifying event and has no trace of what you call "obsession with the Royal Family".
In ”the pomp and ceremony of hereditary monarchy”, it’s not exactly the ”pomp and ceremony” that is the problem.
"As I said in my previous post, I thought the inauguration itself was a splendid and uplifting occasion: the United States at its best and most admirable."
Agreed, and I'm glad it's over. I voted for Obama, and I'm happy to see him take over, but I have felt a bit queasy too.
Yesterday, my son came home from his day in public-school kindergarten having been indoctrinated to a distasteful extent -- euphoric about the new president who will be our salvation.
Mr. C.,
The universal (in the West) infatuation with celebrity is the most troubling part of this whole coro...er.... inauguration. Unlike some soccer star, or Spice Girl or movie star, or even a pure celebrity like P. Diddy or Paris Hilton, or even the Queen, Mr. Obama is actually in a position of responsibility and accountability. Though I bemoan the authority gradually usurped by his predecessors, and fear the responsibility entrusted to him by commoners, these things do, in fact exist. That is scary.
I have no high hopes for the accomplishments of any politician. Keep the streets policed, keep the bureaucrats in check, and avoid embarrassing yourself. That is as good as it gets for the whole lot of them. Imagining that the President is going to make any individual's life (outside a small circle) better by dint of office is both ridiculous and scary to contemplate.
Just let us take care of ourselves. We are actually pretty good at it!
Regards,
Brian Reilly
I have always thought that the dual nature of the American Presidency (both Head-of-State and Head-of-Gov't) was regretable and clumsy. For one thing it makes it almost impossible to turn out a failing President before he has the opportunity to completely screw things up. If given the opportunity to remove a President Hoover at the time of the midterm elections, probably the electorate would have been avoided much suffering. Our President can easily wrap their political programs in an aura of patriotism in ways that end debate; think of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
So it was interesting to hear your thoughts. Also interesting to read in The Atlantic how the Framers tailored the office to fit George Washington. Alas, there is a dirth of Washingtons and Lincolns.
A slight elaboration on Clive's point about political power and monarchy.
There are other monarchies besides the British. Plenty of European countries have monarchies, and put their royals to good use as mannequins in the rituals of statehood. It does not really matter whether you go to Sweden or Belgium, the pomp and circumstance is the same. The details vary.
The inauguration reminded me of the opening of Parliament in those countries and in Britain, a tradition full of pomp. So the one monarch wears a traditional fur lined mantle, and the other just sports an enormous hat, the ritual aspects are the same.
But interestingly enough those folks have no political power at all. They are not even free to speak their mind, or they would get snapped at by government officials. Most of them are just extra's in the pageant of state. And since they have no real power, and no real job to do, they are more or less pushed into a day-in day-out schedule of pompous visits with lots of shaking of hands and red carpets. That strengthens their ceremonial role, but weakens their power even more, because while they are out on a state visit to, say, Patagonia, real power is wielded behind their back by elected officials.
By joining the two roles together, of monarch and political leader, the American president has far more power than his European royal counterparts. That is, in my view, connected with the simplicity of American royal duty. They are not on call as royals all the time. The president and the first lady don't have to spend their days visiting hospitals or whatever, now that the coronation is over, and the opening of Parliament, they can just get on with it and the president can start governing. If he has less power than say the British Prime minister I could not say. Clive is probably right about this.
I thought Laura Bush took her role as first lady to be ceremonial, queenesque, as the powerless woman she maybe perceived herself to be.
Katty's description of london in the run up to a grand royal event doesn't, I must say, accord very strongly with my experience of same. maybe I mix in the wrong circles
What Tom Hanks read was "A Lincoln Portrait" by Aaron Copland, I believe.
I do not follow the initial line or reasoning. America did not boot out Great Britain over pomp and circumstance, but rather the tyranny of parliament imposing taxes on their colonists without fair representation.
George got dragged into the mix because he refused to grant America status as a separate parliamentary state under the King. America would have been more than happy to retain the King if either the greedy parliament had not tried to treat their distant countrymen as a milch cow, or the King would have had enough backbone to stand up to said tyrannic oligarchs.