Fiona Hill

And again, the presidency is a weird hybrid in the United States.

You know, we were talking before about it's the person who should be running the country.

It's the chief executive or the prime minister in another setting.

But we don't think of it like that.

You know, we often think about whether we like the guy or not.

So, you know, we'd like to hang out with him or the president.

One of my younger relatives, when I said, so why did you vote for Trump?

He said, well, he was great.

He was funny.

I went to his rallies.

I got all kind of charged up.

And I said, could you see yourself voting for Biden?

No, he's too old.

And I said, well, you know, he's only just a little bit, you know, kind of older than Trump.

Or he's, you know, the same age as your grandma.

Do you think your grandma?

household oh no not at all but it's just this kind of perception is boring you know so there's people are actually sometimes you know basically being you know kind of uh motivated by just a feeling you know kind of that kind of sense because that's the sort of nature of the you know the presidency it's this kind of how you feel about yourself as an american or how you feel about the country writ large the kind of the symbol of the state look at you know in britain you had you know queen elizabeth ii and everybody you know seemed to for the most part

not everyone, I guess, but most people respected her as a person, as a personality, as a kind of symbol of the state, even if they actually didn't really like the institution of the monarchy.

There was something, you know, kind of about that particular personality that you were able to, you know, kind of relate to in that context.

But in the United States, we've got all of that rolled into one, the head of state, the symbol of the state, the kind of queen, the king, the kind of idea.