I’m not strongly either way but I like the public holiday for their birthday!

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.

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.

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.

I’m Saudi, and honestly, if it weren’t for the monarchy, particularly the Crown Prince, we never would have seen the reforms we’ve had, at least not this quickly. The monarchy’s absolute power has been used to bypass conservative religious institutions that had stalled social progress for decades.

Because the leadership doesn’t have to navigate legislative gridlock or worry about election cycles, it can push through massive, transformative changes almost overnight: granting women the right to drive, curbing the sweeping powers of the religious police, opening the country to tourism, entertainment, and cinemas, and launching major economic reforms and giga-projects.

As a woman, I can walk around the city without covering my hair and not be bothered by anyone. Around ten years ago, I could have been arrested for that. That’s where the appeal lies for me.

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.

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 ^^

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?

Having an inert (a-political) monarch provides a figurehead and commander of the nations military, making it less likely that coups and fascist takeover occurs because all the soldiers swear an allegiance to the king. They don’t have to agree with him, or even with monarchy, but as the big boss ultimately in command of the entire army, an allegiance to him is allegiance to protecting all your comrades and countryfolk.

The monarch is usually unlikely to collapse the country and then flee to another one with their winnings, as a prime minister might do. You could say they have commitment to it, since it’s essentially their family business. Theoretically it should be a blessing that, in a monarchy, we have leadership who actually inherit that position and are raised from birth to lead.

One reason people don’t like monarchy is because there are past case studies of it causing problems, e.g just one legitimacy crisis and civil war breaks out, or if a monarch gets to greedy they will emnroil you in war with your nearest neighbouring state for ages.

But people need to realise, it was never just the monarch in charge. There exist pressure groups, the aristocracy, the church, merchant class; these sorts of organisations have a lot of say in when a war happens and what gets done. The truth of power is oligarchy - an organised minority of the population will always be best suited to maneuveur a takeover of the rest of the popupation. It has to be larger than 1 person, though.

In my eyes, therefore, the king exists not as the leadership but as the figurehead of the organisational force of the country. For instance in the UK the civil service works for the king - this is again superior to them working for the party government, as they have more reason to be unbiased than just “please don’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair.” The monarchy is a real thing, bigger/more important than the party politics, even if less flavourful.

I wholeheartedly also believe that the British Crown provides superior organisation of our secret service/intelligence agency (nope, its not just movie-slop!) - we actually have the oldest standing secret service of any country, i believe, and it’s pretty impressive russia hasn’t completely destabilised britain yet. I would chalk that up to the crown.

The british monarchy is all of these things, but for countries across the world. It therefore has staying power. Getting rid of it isn’t merely a question of how would the people of the UK feel - it may lead to little crises across the world. It’s a big reason why the british army is called out to fight wars in african nations (they do this a lot btw)

Same appeal as religion… delusions can be, and often are, comfortable.

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.

Monarchs don’t just look to the next election or next year’s economic growth.
Their frame of reference goes back for centuries and they have a personal interest in keeping the country functional and prosperous for the next centuries.

So as long as they don’t wield too much executive power that isn’t democratically legitimized, they can act as a counterweight to the parliament that’s often dominated by party politics.

Edit:

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Stay classy, folks and folkettes.

I guess some of it is straight up fandom, but there is a historical legacy to consider as well.

There are still some UEL enclaves around where I live, for example. United Empire Loyalists were people who sided with Britain during the American Revolution (there were more than you might think), and many wound up resettling in Canada. So you still see Union Jacks flying in people’s yards to this day and historical battle reenactments. That sort of thing.

They tend to be politically conservative, but have a distaste for American-style conservatism. And certainly nothing sets them off more than 51st state rhetoric coming out of Trump.