Martin Pengelly is an Englishman living in New England, and he wants you to know that he’s rooting for his adopted country over his home country today as the Lionesses (that’s the England national team for all you Yanks) take on the USA in the Women’s World Cup semi-finals. In some ways this makes sense—his daughters are American, his wife is American, and the American team is inspiring and full of amazing role models for his girls. But he also talks at length about how, frankly, America is a better country than the UK.
Utter rubbish.
I would never dream of criticising Mr Pengelly for cheering against his native land. After all, I’m American, and I’ll be supporting the Lionesses over my own country, just as I have done every time the two national teams have met and in every Olympics since I was old enough to know what the Olympics were.
Why? For the same reasons that Mr Pengelly cheers for Team USA. I think Britain is a better country. England, in particular, feels very much like home to me. I feel like I fit there better.
Much of Mr Pengelly’s argument falls on the fact that Americans can remove their leaders if they so choose, but that the British can’t because their leader is a hereditary monarch. A fair point, I suppose, except of course the crown exercises no real authority, as the power of the crown has for centuries now rested in parliament. It is true the people have no direct recourse to remove a intransigent Prime Minister, but the people’s representatives do, which is basically the same in the USA.
If you’re going to argue for republicanism, fair dos. There are plenty of valid arguments for abolishing the monarchy. That they are some sort of irretractable dictator isn’t one of them. Indeed, if either country is showing signs of an emerging tyrant with monarchical designs, it’s America. Just this past week Princess Ivanka represented us on the world stage—and no one elected her.
By almost every measure, the UK is a better country than the USA. Despite the perception that America is the “land of opportunity” where anyone can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” today the US is actually less socially mobile than the UK. The British have healthcare that is free at the point of access in the NHS, which even the Conservative Party has called a “national treasure,” while Americans have to beg strangers online for their lives, raising money through crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe to pay for lifesaving treatments.
Of course, you don’t need a GoFundMe campaign if you’re already dead; America hasn’t gone a week without a mass shooting since January 2014. Just last month, an armed militia threatened to shut down the capital of Oregon. Nothing says “shining city on a hill” quite like armed insurrection.
When it comes to acceptance of gay people (obviously important to me, as a gay man), Britain is also more accepting of homosexuality than the United States, which is much less tolerant than other Western nations (excepting Northern Ireland—or more precisely, the DUP and their ilk—of course). The recent rash of states curtailing abortion access is only the latest example of American misogyny manifesting itself. Britain’s had two female heads of government; America has famously had none. Both countries have problems with racism, and I’ve written about the intersection of racism and classism in the UK, specifically as it manifested in the Grenfell Tower tragedy. But American racism does seem to be more overt, and it is spreading like wildfire.
None of this is to pretend that Britain is perfect or America is some hellhole. Britain has its issues and evils just as any nation does, and America is still a far better place to live than most of the world. We have Trump, you have Boris. It’s not a Christmas cracker on either side of the Atlantic. But from where I’m sitting, the UK does seem to be leaps and bounds better for someone like me—a working class gay man who doesn’t want to get shot or have to beg strangers for money if he is.
That’s to say nothing about the British sense of fair play, of giving everyone a fair shake. Of British nerve and resolve, the famed “stiff upper lip” which I so admire. There’s that pride in the nation’s history without being beholden to it—something the United States could learn with regards to Confederate iconography. And, of course, there’s Danny Dyer. He’s a bleedin’ national treasure.
It’s for all these reasons, and more, that I want to move to the UK, and why today, I’ll be cheering for the Lionesses as they take on my home country. I don’t begrudge Mr Pengelly his love of America, and I’m sure he could write an article that counters every point I made. Honestly, at the end of the day, sometimes these things aren’t quantifiable. Home is where the heart is, after all, and matters of the heart are rarely rational.
We will kick his team’s ass today, though.
