Actor Riz Ahmed says he is fortunate that right-wing “racists” in Britain do not have guns like MAGA voters in the United States.
The left-wing, U.S.-born Daily Show comedian Hasan Minhaj, whose parents are Indian Muslim migrants, posted a YouTube video featuring Ahmed, a Pakistani man born to immigrant parents in the U.K., for what Minhaj labeled “A Deeply Unserious Britain-America Summit.”
At one point during the conversation, Minhaj asked Ahmed what the difference is between the right in the U.S. and the right in the U.K. — or, as he puts it, “American MAGA and British MAGA.”
“What is the difference between the right-wing movement there and the right-wing movement here? Is it also a proto-fascist movement there? Is it What are the similarities and differences?” Minhaj asked.
“There’s a lot of similarities and they’re talking about replacement, the great replacement theory and all that,” Ahmed replied.
“It’s about anti-migration. A lot of it’s about the lightning rod of Islamophobia. A lot of it’s taking place along the backdrop of western economic decline and rising inequality. I think that’s a lot of the similarities,” he added.
“The big difference is our racist people have less guns. Which is great. Which is really lucky, which is really good.”
“They’re not strapped,” Minhaj added.
“Well, yeah. I mean, they get to spend that money on their outfits. They made that decision. So, they look dangerously fashionable. But they won’t kill you as quickly. So I think that’s the big difference,” he said.
“I also kind of feel like there is a thing now with American the American right wing where it’s just cartoonishly brazen, right? You know what I mean? It’s just like the things you read, the tweets you read, it’s like it’s like WWE wrestling or something. You know what I mean? Whereas I think there is still an attempt often to try and dress up British racism as polite common sense,” the Star Wars: Rogue One star continued.
“And that’s one thing that you could say, for better or worse, is that Americans are much more in your face about what they think, and the Brits kind of kill you with a smile,” he concluded. “So I think that’s a slight cultural difference, but I think actually what we’re seeing is like startlingly similar playbook and narratives taking root everywhere — from India to the U.S., the U.K. to Hungary to France. You know what I mean? It’s the same couple of talking points. It’s xenophobia. It’s the gender war and the country, immigration.”
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