Love and Monsters

Divorce & what it means for the United States

I wrote in a previous Stack that American exceptionalism is dead. Briefly, this is what I think it means for the rest of the world that is watching in despair…

I met my partner, Lily, while at Oxford more than thirty years ago. I still remember walking into The Mitre and seeing a gorgeous blonde creature sitting confidently on a barstool working on her pint and making a beeline for her, all the usual lines to hand.

She saw me coming. Her first words to me - ever - were “Don’t even think about trying to chat me up, mate. I’m a lesbian.” I laughed, but somewhere between her charming Kentish lilt and her quiet confidence I was intrigued. So, I sat next to her and we started chatting. That led to a very amusing and diverting dawn the next day and a friendship that would span three decades and define us both as people.

We both carried on in life and married other people. But our friendship reached a depth over the years that I wish everyone could experience in their lives. I found myself comparing every relationship I had with women subsequently to that one I had with Lily. It became the gold standard by which I measured every single one of them, including my 18-year marriage, though not consciously until later in life.

When our respective marriages failed it revealed deeply held feelings that had for years gone unacknowledged by both of us and we very quickly turned from friendship to romance and then to a life partnership. I cannot express easily - through this medium - just how much I admire and adore Lily. Thirty years of trust, mutual affection, and abiding friendship simply cannot be quantified in a paragraph or two. She knows all of my secrets and I know all of hers.

The relationship that the rest of the world had with the United States has - for the past 80 years - very much been what Lily and I shared before becoming romantically involved just about a year ago, now. It was - coincidentally - around the time that Donald Trump began his second term in office.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the world looked to the United States for the safety and security for which it was by then very thirsty. It was a trusted ally, strong, confident, and unwaveringly committed to democracy and the role that international law ought to play on the geopolitical scene. It was a natural movement from chaos to stability. Much in the way that Lily and I moved very organically into our present reality.

But, what happens when that trust is betrayed? What would happen if I betrayed Lily, or she betrayed me? It would hurt. Deeply. It would upend our belief in security, it would sour us on trust, it would create a lasting chasm of belief in that which is right and good and beneficial. It would destroy both of us.

I would argue that in failing to act upon the rift that Donald Trump has created in the fabric of geopolitics, Congress, Trump’s cabinet, and the American people who voted for him have betrayed the rest of the world. That is what we heard in the stirring and universally notable speech that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave at Davos:

“American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes…[t]his bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

The United States has betrayed the world, in thought, word, and deed. The United States has betrayed itself. A once great and deep friendship has been torn to shreds in a year. It happened so fast that I’m not even sure anyone noticed until it was too late. By design or by accident, Donald Trump has shifted how the rest of the world approaches our former security blanket. It is time for a divorce.

Relying on states like the US is no longer a viable course to choose. New alliances must be formed in the tragic aftershocks of the earthquake of the global betrayal at the hands of a demented madman. That is what Prime Minister Carney is doing. But rather than focus on the lover’s betrayal, rather than focus on the divorce, Carney is looking forward. His speech was an admonishment to forge new friendships, build new alliances, and build a better world out of this new paradigm.

Divorce is always painful. Lily and I have both experienced that in our lives. But following our own upheavals we were able to find solace, a new bond, and a better future together.

That is what the world needs, now. That is what Carney is saying. That is what our focus must be on as we step forward into the new dawn. The time for conversation is over. Now we act, not as reaction, but as a deliberate move forward from a divorce that will ruin us all if we focus on it and not the future.