Yes, the king’s US visit will go down in history: it marked the death throes of an old era | Nesrine Malik

A The thing about living at the end of an era is that some events in the present already seem like future artifacts – things you expect to see in a school history book or documentary many years from now. Here is King Charles’ state visit to the United States in 2026, right between the chapters on the war with Iran and the global energy crisis. Here’s a picture of the entire Trumpland constellation, dining on spring herb ravioli and Dover sole. Look at this interesting antique of the time: the gold plates, the universal sign of a regime at the height of excess. And there you see the foreign dignitary giving a speech that, at the time, seemed like a bold statement of truth, but which, as we all now know, was little more than naive theater as the whole world teetered on the edge of the precipice.

The characters at the origin of the end-of-era crisis were present, usefully concentrated in one place to illustrate to those of the future how it got there and by whom. The money men, the Lord Haw-Haws, the nepo babies, the collaborators. Seven guests from Fox News, seven members of the Trump family, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook and – a little treat for golf-loving Trump – Masters champion Rory McIlroy, whom the president made stand up and show off, stepping away from his state address to say: “Congratulations! Very proud of you.” If you wanted a snapshot of the forces propping up the Trump administration, indifferent to its colossal violations, here it is: billionaire-funded corporate media, big tech, private equity, and stars just happy to be so close to so much power.

One of the most shocking things about the crisis is how normal everything is, how American power retains such a massive gravitational pull that even as Trump engages in all manner of unhinged behavior or threatens to wipe out an entire civilization, the state’s comfortable protocols of respect and amity continue.

And boy, some people weren’t happy about it – about having the chance to believe, for a moment, that the White House hadn’t been thrown into the gutter. The next day, almost the entire front page of the New York Times website was devoted to the visit, the king’s jokes and decorum, the menu, the guest list and Charles’s itinerary. And look at our precious bipartisanship! Resurrected once more for a glimpse as the king is welcomed, like a house where a warring couple stands united to keep each other company, and it may appear for an evening that they are not permanently irreconcilable.

And what “subtle rebuttals” were well done on the part of the king. To those in the UK who are constantly worried that this special relationship is deteriorating, don’t worry, because in one respect the US will continue to answer your calls. A rich old monarchy, the most famous in the world, can still give a certain credibility to a country long removed from its power. A political system that prides itself on becoming a democratic monster in just 250 years, supported by a constitution and the separation of powers – but is now a place in which the president is engaged in battle with the judiciary and launches wars for the head of the legislature. One that was previously shrouded in the rhetoric of a shining city on a hill and the norms of polite conventions of the elite, but is now imbued with indignity, suspicion of insider trading, hooliganism and bloodshed.

But the royal visit was also an exercise in mutual rehabilitation for two countries on a journey into the unknown, clinging to their past glories. This already feels like a vestige because both institutions, the presidency and the monarchy, are at rock bottom. Context is both inevitable and extremely necessary to avoid. A whole class of people tarred by associations with Jeffrey Epstein. A scandal which continues to resound at the gates of the presidency and which has already cost the lives of a prince and the British ambassador to the United States, and which still threatens, in its repercussions, to bring down the British Prime Minister. When approaching such a context, one must certainly be very subtle.

Support for the monarchy is at an all-time low, particularly among young people. Trump’s approval rating has fallen to the lowest point of his current term. Both countries, apart from disillusionment with their elected and unelected leaders, are hurtling towards an uncertain future, with no serious opposition to Trump in sight and a Labor government on the ropes. As nations, the United States and the United Kingdom capture the heritage, reputation and treasures of the past.

There was something both pathetic and understandable about the eagerness to cling to these remains. In British newspapers, Charles is said to have given a “masterclass in diplomacy”, defended NATO in a “historic speech” and reforged the privileged relationship. Even the Europeans were carried away, with Le Monde announcing that Charles had given Trump a “lesson in democracy”, during a visit which “has symbolic weight for all Europeans attached to the rule of law and the preservation of balanced ties with the United States”.

It’s hard to reckon with the reality that so many ships have sailed: neither Europe nor the UK has any influence over Trump; that the rule of law was destroyed not only by the American president, but also by a genocide in Gaza that these higher-ups either sanctioned or allowed to happen. Charles was not a wise representative of an old, viable civilization to a new one that had lost its mind, but an emissary of those still unable to recognize how the combination of their own failures and the unquestioned hegemony of the United States brought an end to their rules-based order.

What comes next? The trajectory is towards more problems rather than tranquility; the possibility of a prolonged war with Iran and further destabilization in the Middle East, global energy shocks, perhaps even the collapse of NATO and the collapse of American democracy itself. That’s why this royal visit feels like a beat in a story, a cliffhanger that observers in the future will see as a moment when it was clear that something was ending and no one at the time knew it. I don’t blame those who became younger when a European king made people believe for a precious moment that sanity and stability were still within their reach. Go ahead, I said. Keep it, remember it. Because the chapter is coming to an end.