Divided as the world might be right now, I think there’s something we can all agree on: Watching Donald Trump being pulled by horses through the grounds of Windsor Castle in the back of a gilded carriage is an excellent distraction.
The US president embarked on his second state visit this week, just a few days after Stephen Yaxley-Lennon supporters marched through London demanding something vague about “wanting their country back” while waving flags. They were visited via video-link by Elon Musk, just another billionaire who’s absolutely on the side of the working class and knows what they need, and who has been supporting the far right in Europe for a while now.
“Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming for you,” former Trump adviser and ‘first buddy’ Musk told the marchers. “You either fight back or you die.” He then called for the dissolution of the UK government.
And now here are Donald and Melania, on an “unprecedented” second royal visit, watching the gun salute and fannying around with Will and Kate, because us Brits really do love inviting the foxes back into the henhouse. Silly horses in silly outfits are ridden around vast palace grounds that no royal wants to live on but that they refuse to open to the British public.
Melania wore a hat pulled down so low that no photograph could capture her eyes, and Camilla was pictured peering underneath it in order to address her. Donald marched on a little ahead of Prince Charles, the “elegant gentleman”, which is apparently not entirely a breach of protocol. There was a gun salute.
The Trumps flew in on Marine One, the presidential helicopter, landing in the Walled Garden inside the perimeter, so that they could avoid the London protesters who were locked outside of the palace gates, kept back from expressing their inconvenient opinions by hordes of taxpayer-funded police.
In doing so, they entered a world that’s surely deeply familiar to them: dripping in gold and blithely disconnected from true democracy, with a whiff of Epstein scandal in the air. Sweatless Prince Andrew didn’t make an appearance, obviously, but he was present in another form as one particularly determined protester managed to project an image of Trump, Epstein and Andrew onto one of Windsor Castle’s turrets.
In this absurd theater, the choreography is impeccable. Everyone ignores the projection on the wall. Carriages, gun salutes, sparkly outfits and afternoon tea are all perfectly timed, all perfectly staged. The Trumps do not merely participate in pageantry; they consume it. They are the actors, the audience and the set designer, all at once. Windsor Castle bends around them.
For Americans and Brits alike, there is a strange pleasure in watching such extreme confidence collide with absurdity. One cannot look away, partly because of the gold, partly because of the guns and partly because it is genuinely terrifying.
The Trumps will stay tonight in the palace as guests of the King and Queen, after enjoying a ceremonial meal, and before meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday. In further “you couldn’t make it up” developments, senior diplomat to the US and former Labour spin doctor Peter Mandelson was just removed from his post by Starmer for his own connections to Epstein three days ago, so he won’t get to partake in any of the fun himself.
What do we make of all this ceremony, juxtaposed as it is with the world burning in the background? While the Trumps' visit is an extravaganza of opulence and tradition, Musk's involvement in the so-called ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally less than a week before was a reminder of what lurks beneath.
Both events underscored the power of spectacle in shaping public perception. Both spotlighted deeply unpopular figures (the majority of the UK does not support the monarchy) and both continued a cycle of division and culture wars.
As the Trumps took a tour through St. George’s Chapel, final resting place of Queen Elizabeth II, pro- and anti-Trump protesters clashed on the streets of London. A YouGov poll released as the procession continued showed that nearly half of Britons thought it was wrong to invite the Trumps to the UK in the first place.
All of which is to say that the conclusion should be fairly obvious. You can put out as many plates of cucumber sandwiches as you like, but the true face of America’s “special relationship” with Britain is now peeking through quite obviously from under the shoddy gilding, not a cherub but a gargoyle. This is a marriage of convenience between two embattled elites who need each other’s ceremonies more than their people need them.
The people, however, are still very much outside the palace walls, letting their thoughts be known. And the UK offering its grandest stage to America’s culture warriors, as if it might be able to normalize their more authoritarian impulses and smooth out their edges with ermine and diamonds, will do nothing to quell their rage.
