The Problem With "The People"

We watched another episode of  the third season of The Crown last night: Coup.

Lord Mountbatten, recently forcibly retired Lord of the Admiralty and Uncle of Prince Phillip, is asked by a high level crowd of royalists, a newspaper editor and the head of the Bank of England among them, to head up a coup d'etat.

The Lord asks for 48 hours to think - he does deep research on the recent history of coups - and when he gets back his message is bleak: there are five factors present in successful coups; in England the first four are lacking; but the fifth, he says, a dictate from the Crown could save the day.

That was what he recommended: get the Queen to emulate several of her dodgy predecessors and invent, invoke and promulgate some British Constitutional (written in the minds and hearts of the British People) and Historically allusional mumbo jumbo and get rid of the Prime Minister.

The Queen gets wind of the plot, beats it back to England from America where she is doing deep research on race horse breeding, calls Mountbatten in to the palace, and tells him that the Crown considers the will of the people to be sovereign and that until that will changes Wilson and his government will remain.

That spread warm Nearly Republican (capital R because it refers to a form of government, not the current rump of the GOP) feeling throughout the house: the will of the people is sovereign and all is, therefore, right with the world.

"Just like here" we said, taking a sip of wine in unison.

"The people are always right" we said.

But then we remembered: 74 million Americans voted for dum dum donnie; they also voted for Ol' Mitch and the Boys. 

And they can't get enough of the Rabbit Lady, Super skier and Bret the Beer Drinker.

And they would rather die of covid 19 than to submit to that ultimate symbol of suppression, wearing a protective face covering.

And mass carnage in the next school massacre will be chalked up to individual freedom.

And many believe that the Cosmos is 4000 years old.

And that we are under attack from pizza eating pedophiles.

Or something.

There must be a third way.