Gate crashers

 On Saturday night the mysterious Sai Varshith Kandula repeatedly rammed his truck into a White House barricade and told investigators he had come to "kill the president" and "seize power."  Is he a Hitler fan?  Of course he is.

Today a man drove his car into a security gate at 10 Downing Street and was arrested for criminal damage and dangerous driving.  No word on his political ambitions at this time.  Curious coincidence?

I ask because the UK increasingly echoes the US, at least when it comes to potentially violent extremism.  Last week, for example, the National Conservatism conference was held in a partially filled hall in London, sponsored by America's Edmund Burke Foundation.  (They called it NatCon, but they should have known that others would call them NatC's.  Poor planning there.)  The far right of the Tory Party mingled with Yanks like Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation and Yoram Hazony of the Burkers to condemn immigration, low birth rates, "cultural Marxism" and the left generally.  Mandatory military service was also mentioned, and for comic relief there was crackpot historian David Starkey, who believes increased attention to slavery stems from certain people's "jealousy" of the Holocaust.  Can we agree they were both bad?

As individual Britons and the country grow poorer, a new word has been coined for the experience of leaving the EU:  "Bregret."  More than half tell poll-takers that Brexit was a mistake and they would like another referendum.  It's not clear whether this is the result of changing attitudes on immigration or higher prices for more scarce items like fresh vegetables; maybe both.  The Conservatives are polling 20 percent behind Labour, which is neither beloved nor particularly left under Keir Starmer (who describes his putative government as "Tony Blair on steroids").  Many expect another coalition with the Liberal Democrats.  

When it comes to policing, there are excesses in both countries but those in Britain tend to be less violent.  Sixty-four people were arrested on Coronation Day, six of whom were actual anti-monarchical activists; all six were released without charge.  The rest were just hapless people grabbed off the street or out of private meetings because somebody decided they looked disruptive.  In Indianola, Mississippi, on the other hand, Nakala Murry told her son Aderrien to call 911 when his father arrived at the house in an "irate" mood.  The officer showed up with gun drawn, ordered everyone outside and decided he'd better shoot Aderrien, who is eleven, in the chest.  He is recovering from wounds to his liver, lung and ribs. 

It's not only mass shootings that are breaking records here:  American cities are having to pay a record $20 million to people injured by police during the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd.  Most cities could find other uses for that money, and the number will certainly rise as more litigation moves through the courts.  Racism is fiscally stupid, apart from everything else.

The British are way ahead of us when it comes to legislative raucousness, following well established patterns of groaning and laughing while the Speaker yells for order.  Everyone seems to enjoy it and nobody gets assaulted.  Over here it's a little scarier.  At a fundraising dinner Margie Greene paid $100,000 for a Chapstick used by Squeaker McCarthy, whose lips are raw from Trump's blotchy ass, and was rewarded with the job of Squeaker-for-a-Day.  Steve Scalise was spewing something about the debt limit and Democrats naturally laughed, causing Madame to demand "some decorum on the other side."  Remembering how she dressed up as a balloon and screamed "Liar!" during State of the Union, the other side lost it.  How she loves to pound that gavel.  And now that she owns McCarthy's DNA she can grow her own McCarthy in a peach tree dish.  Margie was coming off a well-publicized snit with Jamaal Bowman, who may have implied that she's a tad racist.  "It's like calling a person of color the N word," she protested.  "I feel threatened by him."  Like that Indianola police officer who felt threatened by Aderrien Murry.  

Your move, Mother of Parliaments.