To be a Brit in America is to be constantly on the defensive. Other Brits like to tell you, constantly, how stupid Americans are; how annoying their accents are; how bad their infrastructure and their food and their views and their healthcare system and obesity rates are; how sad it is for you that you live there. I’ve spent the past six years that I’ve lived in New York City rebuffing those claims, and also reminding them that each state is practically a country. But this week’s election result has made things particularly difficult.
As the exit poll results came in on Tuesday night, I allowed myself to feel optimistic. I’m long on America, somewhat unexpectedly: I came out here in January 2019 intending to stay six months, and instead built a life. I endured the pandemic in a studio apartment in Brooklyn, taking lockdown walks through a deserted Times Square in disbelief. I witnessed the celebrations in November 2020 when Biden won: people were literally popping champagne corks on rooftops around me and dancing with flags in the streets. And in 2023, I had my son in New York. He’s an American citizen. I believed, when he was born, that the US had left a bad period behind and was a land of opportunity again (in hindsight, maybe it was the epidural.)
