Prince Harry used to be a great maestro of an evolving British royal family. A soldier with a keen sense of humor, he seemed to embody all that is best about the British establishment: duty and tradition.
That is no longer. These days, Harry is an archetype of the entitled upper-middle-class British twit.
The Harry of 2012 was flying Apache gunships in missions against the Taliban, and 2019 Harry was bantering with British soldiers on deployment. But 2020 Harry tries to ban unfavorable media coverage and lecture Americans on their own election.
In a video released alongside his wife, Meghan Markle, on Wednesday, Harry lectured Americans on their responsibilities. Why Harry’s public relations team thinks that Americans will welcome this lesson is unclear. Regardless, while he didn’t name President Trump directly, Harry is clearly in the camp of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
“This election, I’m not going to be able to vote in the U.S.” Harry continued. “But many of you may not know that I haven’t been able to vote in the U.K. my entire life. As we approach this November, it’s vital that we reject hate speech, misinformation, and online negativity.”
There are simultaneous idiocy and irony in those words.
For a start, it’s actually untrue that Harry hasn’t been able to vote in the United Kingdom. While it is a tradition of Britain’s unwritten constitution that royals don’t vote, they are legally entitled to do so. That tradition supports the royal family’s modern role as nonpolitical actors in British democracy. But that nonvoter Harry is now telling Americans not simply how to vote, but also to reject “online negativity” is the height of arrogance.
Harry must also know that his words will infuriate Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. After all, as even a nominal British royal, Harry is expected to avoid commentary on matters of foreign political importance, especially as it risks inflaming the sensitivities of Trump, the leader of the U.K.’s closest ally.
In that sense, Harry’s words offer a most sublime example of what Americans in Britain will have experienced at upper-middle-class dinner parties. Uneducated criticisms of American conservative attitudes abound in these forums, especially on matters of foreign policy, healthcare, and guns. I always found that a polite listening ear and discussion was the best way to respond to these viewpoints. But if the criticisms descend into rudeness, one retaliatory line is always available: “You don’t vote, so it doesn’t particularly matter what you think.” Though seemingly arrogant, this line plays to the displacement of one empire by the American-led international order. It thus vanquishes the false entitlement of eminent global political domain with a distinctly American gumption.
But I digress. Why on earth does Harry think that independent-minded voters, those yet to make up their minds, would want to listen to a tinpot British royal who lives in the Hollywood hills? I mean, Harry’s utility as a political persuader here is about as useful to Democrats as the iceberg was to the Titanic.
It’s just not very clever. But then again, that’s 2020 Harry.
