Wishful

The short-lived tenure of Liz Truss as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has drawn comparisons with the United States. Namely how quickly the Conservative Party in the UK decided that Ms. Truss was a disaster and had to go, versus the Republican Party's unwillingness to consign former President Donald Trump to the political wilderness.

The comparison is perhaps understandable, but it still inapt. Mainly due to one major difference. Britain's Conservative Party basically came to the conclusion that their interests were not served by Ms. Truss remaining Prime Minister. The Republican Party here in the United States, however, still believes that Donald Trump has their interests at heart, and will pursue them if he's returned to the White House. Note that in neither case did I say anything about the interests of the nation at large.

And that's because people don't generally see their interests as separate from, let alone at cross purposes to, those of their nation. And while a lot of left-leaning media types may see Donald Trump's policy desires as being just as bad for the United States as Liz Truss' were for the United Kingdom, Republicans don't agree with that assessment. And, as near as I can tell, there's no real reason for them to agree with that assessment. They're getting what they want, and they understand that what they want is what is in the best interests of the nation as a whole. The people who are hurt by it, or otherwise have problems with it, want, at least in the minds of many Republicans, something other than what's best for the United States. (Remember, the two parties tend to see the other as more extreme than is the reality of the situation.)

Democracy does not mean that people are gifted with an arbitrary level of enlightenment. It simply means that the franchise is broadly available. The ousting of Liz Truss is not a victory for British democracy; likewise, the continued popularity of Donald Trump in Republican circles is not a failure for American democracy. Both outcomes are merely a manifestation of how people see their own interests in the world.