Why Do the American Bourgeoisie Feel the Need to Ape the British Aristocracy?

I mean, if they really need to feel inferior to somebody, I can think of plenty of people they are inferior to- but not to English toffs.

I had this thought after reading the following in an article about David Samson, the mega-fixer lawyer at the top echelon of the State of New Jersey's ruling class, boss of a powerful law firm that arranges state contracts for its clients, and who was placed at the head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey by Republican Governor Chris Christie (to whom Samson is a key henchman). Samson has now been dragged into the news (and into daylight from the shadows where his ilk usually operate) by vengeful closing of the traffic lanes from Fort Lee, NJ onto the George Washington bridge for four days in early September to punish the Democratic mayor of that town for failing to endorse Christie for reelection last year. Here's the passage that prompted the thought, about Samson's wife:

“Mr. Samson’s wife, Joanna Dunn Samson, is a former deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. They have a condominium not far from his firm’s main office, in West Orange, N.J., and a larger weekend home in Litchfield County, in Connecticut, where Ms. Samson has ridden horses with a local fox hunting club.” [1]

Fox hunting! Now where does that come from? It's hardly an indigenous American custom.

You see this a lot if you check out the “Style” section of the New York Times, for example (which is sort of a house organ for the American bourgeoisie, among its other functions), fox hunting, obsession with “royalty” and “titles,” antiquing, concern with one's “lineage,” and generally aping the mannerisms and folkways of the British upper classes, especially “royalty.”

In addition to an inferiority complex, perhaps they envy the English elite for not having to affect a common man, faux populism, All Men Are Created Equal facade.

Or maybe we should see it as merely an amusing affectation, a way of establishing one's social supremacy, hunting foxes on horseback. I would also observe that such British-centric affectations seems to be a phenomenon on the East Coast of the U.S., where old money traces itself back to the English landed gentry who founded the United States. Do you think there's foxhunting in Los Angeles, or Chicago? No, there are no foxes, but if there were, would they dress up in those funny costumes and hunt them? I doubt it.

Speaking of Anglo inferiority complexes, here's one that was simultaneously an inferiority AND superiority complex- the relationship to “the Jews.” I think the Anglo elite- indeed the elites of many European nations besides- felt threatened by “Jews” because they feared what they perceived to be their intelligence (valuing intellectual accomplishment is indeed common among Jews) and skill at making money. (Not a canard, and certainly not a put-down. Who doesn't wish they were good at amassing wealth? Of course the truth here is a matter of percentages- we could say a greater percentage of Jews are financially successful, or intellectually accomplished, than other groups. I think that is true, and something that Jewish people take pride in among themselves, but regard as anti-Semitic if a gentile says it. Certainly anti-Semites resent and hate Jews for it- but why should the envy of loathsome bigots prevent the rest of us from being able to acknowledge an aspect of reality, and try to explain and understand it? It depends on the spirit and intent of the observation whether it is anti-Semitic or not.)

1] “As Inquiry Widens, Port Authority Chief May Lose His Low Profile,” New York Times, January 15, 2014. Notice that this gratuitous fact- of interest to a certain social set- was tossed into an article about a political scandal to which it would seem to be irrelevant. And they give the wife's middle name, which is a family name, another marker of social connections for those in the know. In terms of useful information, there are details of Samson's dirty deals and power-connections over the years, which provides a case study in the institutionalized corruption of the U.S. socio-economic political system.