Dissing British Royalty to Mourn American Democracy

You probably thought the 2020 US presidential election would never end. But it has. Joe Biden is (effectively) the President-elect of the United States.

Unfortunately, I fear his victory will be pyrrhic. And the legal challenges now underway will be the least of it. After all, the Republican members of Trump’s cult performed so well that Trumpism will live on, flailing across the political landscape like a chicken with its head cut off.

But, as the title indicates, this commentary is not about mourning the sublime fate of American democracy. For that, I refer you to Wednesday’s commentary, “Biden Will Win…Eventually. But (Too Much of) America Will Still Be Trump Country – With All the Civil Strife That Portends.”

Instead, this commentary is about dissing the ridiculous state of British monarchy. You see I am convinced that blowing off the fairytale lives of the British royal family is just what the doctor ordered. This, to help us flow into a state of post-election Namaste.

For those of you who might be unaware, this blog is replete with commentaries denouncing royalty and all of its presumptions, perks, and appurtenances. Foremost, because royalty is anathema to the universal principle that all people are created equal. But any democracy that institutionalizes royalty in the twenty-first century is almost as cancerous (and oxymoronic) as one that institutionalized slavery in the nineteenth.

Prince Charles famously decreed that modern architecture is an eyesore on the skyline of London, which needs to be demolished. But I humbly submit that British royalty is an eyesore on the landscape of modern society, which needs to be abolished!

The most compelling justification Britons offer to sustain their monarchy is that it is good for the economy. That should be damning enough. After all, this is the same justification Southerners offered to maintain their institution of slavery.

I readily concede that my British-colonial background informs my antiroyalist views. This, for example, is why

I denounced royal marriages after Prince Charles went from consorting with Camilla, while on honeymoon with Princess Diana, to marrying Camilla, after driving Diana not only crazy but to her death. I did this in “A Royal Marriage Worthy of King Henry VIII” on February 17, 2005;
I condemned royal greed after Sophie-Countess of Wessex and Sarah-Duchess of York prostituted their royal status to “Arab sheiks” for easy money. I did this in “Princess Michael of Kent Embarrasses the British Royal Family…Again!” on September 7, 2005;
I ridiculed royal pretensions after reports exposed nouveau-riche throughout the British Commonwealth who paid common bribes for royal titles. I did this in “Pardon Me, Sir, but How Much Did You Pay for Your Knighthood?” on July 14, 2007; and
I pitied royal desuetude after royalists began calling for the queen to abdicate – not to make Charles but his son William king. I did this in “British Monarchy: Abdication by Any Other Name Would Betray the Same” on January 7, 2019.

I could go on, but you get the point. Which is why I’m going to focus on the Megxit scandal, which I think will affirm, perhaps even vindicate, my abiding views.

While they were negotiating their Megxit, Harry and Meghan made clear their intent to use their royal status to make millions, if not billions. No doubt their imperial delusions had them thinking they would make even the Kardashians look like principled paupers when it comes to parlaying social-media influence into cash. And that “multiyear mega-deal” they signed with Netflix recently to promote their brand (and some causes too) could only have reinforced their sense of grandeur and entitlement.

Except that, if either one of them had just a pinch of humility, they would have seen what this omen portended:

The Queen has just banned Harry and Meghan Markle from using ‘Sussex Royal.’ Apparently, they won’t be allowed to sell themselves as ‘Royal’ after stepping down as working members of the British royal family.

(Forbes, February 19, 2020)

Unsurprisingly, these royal grifters wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Simply put, they wanted to reap all benefits of selling themselves as “royals,” but suffer none of the burdens of having to perform like other members of the royal family.

Meanwhile, no matter how rich they become, it will eventually dawn on Harry and Meghan that their royal status is the only thing that distinguishes them in a Tinseltown populated with even richer celebrities. What’s more, they will soon realize that the novelty of their status is diminishing in value with each day they remain in exile.

This is bound to undermine their intent to hold royal court while living here. No doubt their imperial delusions had them thinking that American celebrities would show them even greater deference than British celebrities show the queen herself.

Except that, if either one of them had just a sense of history, they would have seen the way American celebrities treated exiled Edward VIII and “that woman” Wallis Simpson as a portent of even worse treatment for them. After all, Edward was king, whereas Harry is no longer even the spare. Wallis was elegant and supremely intriguing, whereas Meghan is just impudent and typically boring.

More to the point, though, here is how I presaged not only Hollywood’s snub but the Queen’s ban in “Harry & Meghan Scheming to Be More A-List Celebrities than B-List Royals,” January 9, 2020:

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Most Britons will feel about Meghan breaking up the royals the way they felt about Yoko breaking up the Beatles. But Harry is no John Lennon …

Without his royal title and official duties, Harry would just be a balding redhead suffering a premature midlife crisis. And Meghan would soon be looking for a more suitable prince charming – presumably one who does not have a useless royal title.

Again, both he and Meghan are in for a rude awakening if they think they can monetize their royalty the way the Kardashians do their celebrity. … The queen bowing to a dead Diana is one thing. But bowing to these scheming Sussexes would strip her of what little awe and reverence she has left.

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This is why I am not at all surprised that the “freedom” they negotiated is not living up to their royal fantasies. To be sure, as reports indicate, Meghan is thrilled to be living like a queen – with all perks and privileges but no duties or responsibilities.

But I am mindful that delusions of grandeur misled her to think she could succeed where Princess Diana failed in remaking the royal family in her progressive image. After all, that turned out so well that she has hightailed it back to America, with a prince without a country in tow. I suspect similar delusions are misleading her to think that she and Harry can now rise to the top of the A-list – in Hollywood and on social-media.

Meanwhile, Meghan seems regally unaware that Harry is flapping about like a fish out of water.

Prince Harry … is still struggling with the adjustment. … [He] has also reportedly spoken with Prince William about the issues he and Meghan are facing in Los Angeles, especially the security and privacy incidents.

(Observer, June 29, 2020)

No doubt you recall that overreaction to tabloid intrusions caused his mother’s death. Therefore, it does not bode well that similar intrusions are already bothering him. After all, his issues will become far more challenging once America, with its predatory paparazzi, emerges from Covid hibernation.

But I suspect it’s really abandoning comrades and country that is eating away not only at his conscience, but at his manhood too. This, especially given that the father of a British soldier who protected him in Afghanistan is leading a chorus of Britons now denouncing him as a deserter. In fact, the former British Army chief, Lord Richard Dannant, published an open letter just last month pleading for Harry to return home because “the veterans need him.”

Yet shock and dismay over abandonment of his military family pales in comparison with the same over abandonment of his royal family. As it happens, royal biographer Robert Lacey has just written about this with Shakespearean pathos in his new book Battle Of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult. According to the Daily Mail, his book picks apart this sibling rivalry in excruciating detail.

But suffice it to know that the only member of the royal family who has any interest in welcoming Harry, let alone Meghan, back into the “firm” is the forlorn queen herself. And she will surely be heartbroken that grandson Harry and great-grandson Archie will not be coming home for Christmas.

This clearly adds credence to speculation that, just as the Beatles never got back together, the “Fab Four” of Harry and Meghan, William and Kate are never ever getting back together.

In the meantime, Harry and Meghan can blame Covid-19 restrictions for keeping them holed up in splendid isolation. But this is only delaying the inevitable – when Hollywood royalty begins treating them as nothing more than B-list celebrities. Because nothing telegraphed what little gravitas these British royals really have quite like this:

George and Amal Clooney confessed they didn’t know the Duke and Duchess of Sussex moments before the royal wedding, it is claimed. …

In a sign of their apparent closeness to the couple, the Clooneys were given a ‘prime pew’ next to Lady Carolyn Warren, who is married to John Warren, the Queen’s bloodstock adviser, and opposite Princess Margaret’s son Viscount Linley.

However the Clooneys reportedly told other guests they didn’t know the happy couple well at all, according to Rachel Johnson.

(The Daily Mail, October 26, 2020)

Think about that folks … What would it say about you if the most popular couple at your wedding was people telling other guests they don’t even know you…?

But here too, nobody should’ve been surprised. After all, I called this out in real time in “Harry Marries Meghan in Historic Swirling of British Royal Family,” May 20, 2018:

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Let’s get this straight … the few Hollywood A-listers (like Clooney) who showed up were there more because [of William and Kate than Harry and Meghan]. Trust me, before she started dating Harry, B-lister Meghan couldn’t get an invitation to the Academy Awards, let alone to the famed post-Oscar parties where A-listers schmooze and unwind. Go ahead, search the Red-Carpet archives. You’ll see she’s nowhere to be found. A latter-day Grace Kelly she is not.

In other words, Meghan earned her professional and social status the old-fashioned way: she married it. How feminist is that?

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What’s more, though, the lily-white world Meghan lived in was such that I’d be remiss not to share this observation from that same historic swirling commentary:

Don’t let the Black bishop and Black choir Meghan enlisted to perform at the church fool you. Because, of the hundreds invited to the attend the reception, you could count the Blacks on the fingers of one hand. And everyone knows Harry invited at least two of them.

Actually, not since George Clooney married Amal Alamuddin has a purportedly cosmopolitan celebrity wedding been so white. And yes, I heaped scorn on their wedding too in “Clooney Nuptials Show Saturday Weddings as Segregated as Sunday Services…?” September 27, 2014.

Again, the foreboding irony is that the Clooneys and other A-list celebrities will undoubtedly be far more interested in hobnobbing with A-list royals in London than in hanging out with B-list royals in Hollywood.

That said, you’ve probably noticed Meghan making moves to rival AOC as the poster girl for the racial grievances of BLM protesters and the woke politics of millennial progressives. This even has Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry lecturing Americans on the evils of systemic racism.

But talk about biting the hand that feeds you. I mean, it’s as if they have no clue that their very royal lives are based on systemic racism. Hell, their tone-deafness is even more farcical than “Be-Best” Melania Trump lecturing Americans on the evils of lying and bullying.

In any event, British royals continue to affirm the title to a commentary I wrote on April Fool’s Day way back 2005, namely “Royalty: Not What It Used to Be – Not Even in America.”

And with that, I say:

Fairy tales can come true
But won’t happen to you
If you’re a grifting tart

Your white prince will be blue
When he sees the black hue
inside your scheming heart. (heeheehee)

Sorry, Meghan.