Why Americans seem more pro-Harry than Brits

The US may have fought the Revolutionary War (the one we call the American War of Independence) to rid themselves of British royal rule but they have never shed their enduring fascination with the British royal family. And many are now captivated by the Sussex drama that is being played out on their own shores.  Why Americans seem more pro-Harry than Brits. 

Harry and Megan have their detractors in America – but they are far fewer in number and far less vitriolic than in the UK. In the US, their story of how they were mistreated by the British press and by Harry’s closest relatives is received with much greater sympathy. One of the couple’s central complaints about their time in Britain is that they were constrained by the strict pecking order within “the firm”.

This makes no sense to Americans for whom the value of meritocracy is deeply ingrained. And who was beguiled by the star power the couple exuded in the first few months after their fairy-tale wedding. In a magazine interview with The Cut, Meghan said that “just by existing” she and Harry were “upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy”.

Harry has complained that he and Meghan were sacrificed to the press as the palace worked to protect more senior members of the family at their expense. The strict hierarchy within the royal family, based purely on the order in which children were born, has been clearly understood by Brits for centuries.

It is more obvious to Americans that the British royal family are beneficiaries of wealth and privilege gained during an era of colonial domination. At a time when the US is grappling with how to teach and understand the darker episodes in its own past, the Sussex saga looks as though it might provoke the same kind of reckoning in the UK.