Very nice.Imagine you are a citizen of a nation in the grip of an oppressive dictatorship. You despise this dictatorship. You fantasize about its overthrow. Many of your best and most controversial philosophers are making ironclad arguments not just for democracy and basic human rights, but they are making a good case that dictatorships might be straight up evil in the eyes of the Lord. Naturally, as these ideas take hold, there is much unrest in your society, and it's growing all the time. Democracy and human rights sounds pretty good. Actually, they are virtuous. But, how? The monarchy is strong. Too strong, in fact, and you don't have the numbers or the resolve yet to fight. For now, you're left dreaming.
Meanwhile, the monarchy is continuing to monarchy. In order to expand its dominion, they send large numbers of its citizens to settle a foreign land. Conquest, they call it. But, they fuck up. Sent the wrong citizens. These citizens are brilliant, well-educated, have unquestionable resolve, and, to cap it all off, have had enough of the monarchy's shit. Over several decades, they do their best to whip the population into shape, both politically and militarily. And, one day, they declare their independence and resign themselves to war with the most powerful nation in existence. And with inferior numbers, inferior training, inferior weapons, inferior everything they... win? No. Fucking. Way.
So what did happen?
Remember, you're the person back home, under the thumb of a dictator. You're armed to the teeth with brand new philosophical ideas and you're fucking tired of being underfoot. You want your god-given rights. But, you've yet to act. What spark will light the powder keg?
Word starts getting around you hear that your brothers and sisters in a foreign land have gone rogue. They are attempting to break free from your shared oppressor. They are fighting for everything you believe to be just and good, fighting the fight that you wish you could fight. They are putting their lives on the line against an unbeatable foe. That foe your is nation, and anyone who supports it, and they are about to set on those revolutionaries like they are some defenseless brown people who are sitting on some precious natural resource. Keg, meet spark.
The American Revolution didn't happen. At least, not in the way we think it did. Sure, there was rebellion, but nothing so effective and decisive as what is taught in American textbooks. Not even close. Rather, American independence was won by our sympathizers back home on the mainland. They were speaking out against what they perceived as a holocaust, and the monarchy fell so far out of fashion that they were forced to make a populist decision. And the rest is history.
But the King was already weakened by the time of the American Revolution and England wasn't the strongest force in the world at the time, it was France, which happened to oppose London and support the rebels.
The English civil war preceded the American Revolution in which the Parliament was immensely strengthened/the king weakened, and the "glorious" Revolution followed, after which the King did not even speak the same langugage as the parliament, George III. was the first King of his Dynasty to natively speak English.
The real hot take is, that the world would be better off if the British Empire persisted, to prevent American hegemony and instead make the west bipolar. (competition->better policies)