Even modern English people are imperious superior ridden by class. All of the hypocrisy and the difficulties that are endemic in being British also make it an incredibly fertile place culturally. A brilliant place to live. Sad but true.

Inauthenticity is endemic in American politics today. The political backrooms where I spent much of my career were just as benighted as my personal life equally crowded with shadowy strangers and compromises truths I hoped to deny. I lived not in one closet but in many.