I’m not a monarchist personally. I lean more ansyn. But if you’re going to have hierarchy at all, it’s hard to beat a constitutional monarchy like Canada’s.

The issue at the core is “doing something”. When you have elected heads of state, like the US president say, said head of state feels pressure to be seen “doing something”. And in my experience, when a politician feels the need to “do something”, trouble results.

In Canada the monarch has virtually no power. Indeed the one real power the monarch has left is the ability to dissolve Parliament and force a new election. In Canada this can be done directly by the monarch, or by their appointed representatives, the Governor General (federal) and Lieutenant Governors (provincial). There are a few other powers the monarch holds (technically a law is only passed once approved by the monarch, for example) but these are basically rubber-stamped because the monarchy isn’t stupid and realizes the first time they say “no” they risk Canada turning into a republic and going to shit like the USA did. The only real sword the monarch carries in their sheathe is that ability to just say “no” to their current government and call for a do-over. And they so rarely draw that sword at anything other than formal, symbolic occasions that most people don’t even realize the sword is there.

So why is this good? Well, the monarchy, being an inherited position and one which is not subject to recall, is secure. They don’t have that intrinsic need to “do something”. Indeed they work best when they do the minimum amount possible. 99.44% of the time they are a figurehead, not a politician. And that means you don’t have some ambitious twat trying to make their name like, I don’t know, tearing down a third of the presidential palace to build a garish ballroom, or trying to glue his name on every institution, or starting wars just to convince his followers he really is tough and totally isn’t a wimp, etc. I mean seriously, look at the utter fucking idiocy American presidents, or Hungarian presidents, or any other elected head of state anywhere in the world does each year and compare it to my entire lifetime (60 years) under a monarch. There’s no contest. Trump alone has done more utterly fucked-in-the-head things in the past week than Lizzie did all her life.

And here’s the fun part. The monarchy is cheap. Indeed in the UK the monarchy is a net benefit to the economy; some of the largest amounts of tourist money pouring into the UK are specifically for people visiting royal properties. In Canada we have to pay a little (a state visit by the monarch comes with some significant costs), but even a major state visit by the monarch is less than the damage an idiot president does to the USA in a week. If we had an elected head of state, I can guarantee you that we’d be paying through our teeth for them in no time flat as they get that urge to be seen “doing something”.

So let’s give a solid example. Way back when, PM Brian Mulroney and his party had Canada’s Parliament in a tight grip. They had a very secure majority government and very strong party discipline, so they could cram anything they wanted through. And one of the things they wanted to cram through, and were preparing to cram through, was NAFTA. The thing is that NAFTA was really unpopular for a lot of very loud people. There was a lot of bad blood going on, and there was doubt if Mulroney had an actual mandate for such a drastic agreement, since that agreement was nowhere near visibility at the time of his election. Had things continued on that course Brian would have forced NAFTA through, and there would have been a cloud over that agreement from every day past that forever.

In the middle of the acrimony, Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, dropped by for a visit. (This is … weird. Royal Visits are planned meticulously months in advance.) Ostensibly she was just doing a Royal Tour, but the timing was very suspicious and the fact it took everyone by surprise was even more suspicious. And in part of her visit she had a private, in-camera meeting with Brian. After the meeting, Lizzie came out looking quite refreshed and unworried while Brian was pale and uncharacteristically quiet. There was a persistent and very credible rumour from that time that Lizzie threatened Brian with proroguing Parliament and calling an election unless he called the election. If Lizzie prorogued, it would be guaranteed that Mulroney would have lost simply on the moral strength of Lizzie’s position. So Mulroney was forced to ask her to prorogue (so it was “his idea”) and it instead gave him a chance to make his case to the people.

They spoke their subsequent platitudes. Lizzie went home. And a short time later Bri-Bri called an election. His party campaigned on NAFTA. The other parties campaigned anti-NAFTA. His party won. He had a clear mandate for NAFTA, which he signed shortly thereafter.

(Note: I am explicitly not commenting on whether NAFTA was or was not a good thing for Canada. That’s out of scope. What’s in scope is whether or not the government had a genuine mandate from the people to negotiate it. By forcing an election—if, indeed, that’s what happened; it’s a rumour, remember—Lizzie made sure that there was.)

Now tell me, how do you think this would play out in a republic? (Hint: you’re seeing it unfold in real time as Trump and his coterie of billionaires and sycophants destroys the USA.)

This is why, although not a monarchist, I am in favour of a constitutional monarchy (both words are important there!) over a republic if you’re going to have hierarchy at all. Though it would be even nicer if political parties would be outlawed.

Not a monarchist, but I definitely have one big gripe with democracy.

Who is responsible?

I feel like there is no responsibility within democracy. Politicians just point at abstract things like party, commission etc. They can sell the country to the outsiders for cash money and nobody will be at fault. Or perhaps it’s the voter, his fault for voting. And when there is too much “guilt” put on party they just disband it and start a new one. Same people, same issues, just a different name.

As for British Monarchy - they are literally pets. I wouldn’t mind a permanent big-brother house with royal family for my country. Would certainly save up on production of telenovelas.

I might have a weird view of things but I don’t want to get rid of royalty, just take away any authority they have over the lives of themselves and others. They already live off others’ work. Let’s keep them as national pets.

‘Who’s a good king? Who looks nice and waves for the people?’

‘Is it me, <racial slur>?’

‘No! No talking! Bad! Smack you on the nose with a rolled up replica magna carta.’

I’m Norwegian, not British, but we also have a constitutional monarchy. I like it for mostly cynical reasons. They take care of ribbon-cutting and other big ceremonies so the politicians can focus on policy, and they give us a “head of state” that’s statistically less likely to become a dictator than an elected president is.

And all the drama and bullshit is a continuous reminder of what a bad idea it would be to institute genuine monarchy.

I’m not monarchist. I think most of the time it ends up as a disaster. However, I’d say the appeal is training someone from birth to be a good leader. Theoretically this could still involve checks and balances.

The other benefit is that they can just get shit done instead of arguing about every little thing and special interest groups roadblocking progress at every turn. Again, this usually backfires spectacularly, but that’s the dream, to just go have a vision and fuckin’ do the thing.

Plato envisioned extending this to a ruling class/aristocracy that is intentionally not allowed to own property but instead focuses on just doing their job to benefit the city. They don’t have to campaign, they can’t reject power, so it is to their benefit to do a good job and benefit the city. There is some logic to this since any schmuck can get elected in a democracy, and money hungry oligarchs are diametrically opposed to having qualities desirable in leadership such as patriotism or caring about others in any way.

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Rich dommy mommy telling me what to do.

The question can also be applied to why people believe in God / follow a religion. The notion of monarchy has (in the UK at least) been tied into pseudo religious notions of ‘chosen by god’ or similar, so it ties into that belief system for better or worse. (Historically the tie-in was to co-opt the obedience baked into faith, but that’s probably lost on modern monarchists and believers.)

People everywhere develop unhealthy relationships with those that are oblivious to them, or outright parasitic and damaging. This is another of those that’s been wrapped up in tradition and ceremony under the guise of ‘normality’ and the status quo. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ may apply.

I’m from the UK and I’m a Monarchist in so much as I want to keep the Royal Family. I certainly don’t like the idea of Kings and Queens broadly speaking and “respect” is a strong word, but here in the UK we’ve got a lot of institutions that have vile histories but wouldn’t serve to benefit anyone if we were to scrap them today.

The Mountbatten-Windsor family also happen to be the Royal Family. These days they’re basically powerless and have less influence and sway than pundits on GB News, the Murdoch media and Facebook, who also aren’t elected. But they’re still an aristocratic family, which means they have access to extraordinary wealth and control of a vast business empire… except they don’t. All their estates, land, businesses, interests, etc are held in reserve as the Crown Estate which is operated on their behalf by a Government-appointed manager. The income from the Crown Estate goes straight to the Government and the Government pays the Royal Family a salary - the Sovereign Grant - which is typically between 25% and 35% of the Crown Estate’s profits. So for all those people who say “ThEy’Re TaX dOdGiNg PaRaSiTeS”: they pay an effective tax rate of at least 60%, which is about 60% more than anyone else with that income. Anyone who moans about the couple of quid a year the Royal Family “costs” them must be ecstatic beyond words to learn about the few extra quid they actually make in profit.

Having a Royal Family is amazing for tourism. Yes, the French have palaces too, but they attract nothing like the numbers as the actual real, functioning palaces and castles actually used by a real, breathing monarchs. The Palace of Versailles makes Buckingham Palace look like a shanty but can you guess which one nets more visitors? Windsor Castle, same deal. Moreover, they’re an amazing soft political power. What would your response be if you found out the Prime Minister of the UK was visiting your country? For most people it’d probably be “oh, who is it this week?”. But what about a visit from the Actual King of England? There would be grand receptions, concerts, speeches, unveilings, all because the Actual King of Actual England is coming. Add demagogues like Trump to the equation and the Royal’s value is amplified further.

Then there’s the scrutiny. We all know the Andrew Formally Known As Prince being a nasty little pervert and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s far more to it. And yet, no-one talks about the Dysons, or the Cavendish-es, or the Rothschilds, or the Montagus, and so on, all of whom are richer and more powerful than the Mountbatten-Windsors and far, far, far more sinister and vile, but they’re not the Royal Family so they’re unknowns. They make the Royals look like cherubs, but they’re well-connected enough to avoid scrutiny and smart enough to remain basically anonymous. Personally, if I was the King I’d tell the UK to fuck off. I’d make the UK a Republic, take my estates and wealth and power back, thankyou very much, and tell everyone to go suck their Mum’s dicks. I don’t know why or how they continue being the Royal Family, but if we “got rid” of them tomorrow we’d lose a tremendous political power and gain yet another unaccountable group of unjustifiably powerful aristocrats.

Former monarchist here: it was nationalism. Simple as that. Bavarian nationalism.

But that stemmed from self hatred and well thats why i am no longer in the right spectrum ^^

Specifically in regards to the British royal family, who don’t really wield much actual policy power, it seems to be more a cultural/traditional curiosity. They’re more like national mascots than anything.

In the case of actual monarchist government, I’m not a monarchist myself but in a certain sense I can understand the logic. Your leaders are trained basically from birth to be leaders, and institutional wealth and lack of elections makes them more difficult to bribe. If your monarch is a good and responsible person, the power to make sweeping improvements without slow, fiddly debates and negotiations is a big benefit.

The logic falls apart pretty quickly in reality though. Generations of isolation from the common people makes you ineffectual in the long term even if your intentions are pure. Then there’s the difficulty of dethroning a monarch whose intentions aren’t pure.

The British Monarch isn’t really a leader any more it’s mostly ceremonial.

They look fancy and bring in money, so with bother removing them?

My guess? Monarchies are likely to lean conservative and uphold “tradition”.

There are many who’d love to live in a monarchy and do away with all the lib/woke/left stuff they so much despise. Throw in some disregard for the dangers of absolute power and a sprinkle of love for a “strong leader” and voilà.

i don’t see the appeal either. i like to think for myself. but i guess many people just don’t like to make decisions themselves so they defer them to someone else.

I’m a 'Murican. When they had that royal wedding back in 2012 or whenever and everyone was going crazy I was like didn’t we fight a war so we wouldn’t have to care about this?

I’ve been around general monarchists, as in people who support monarchy as a form of government, and always wanted to ask this question. The best answer I can think of myself is that democracy is not a guarantee against bad leadership.