I know it’s an American axiom that we are Number One in the world – OK, at least in mass shootings – so forgive me if I blaspheme patriotism by confessing that I am envious about how the British political process flushes its morons down the drain.

Have you seen the news about Prime Minister (and Trump mini-me) Boris Johnson? He’s on the way out – indeed, today he agreed to go – after exhausting his nation with his endless lies, with what a London-based analyst rightly calls “a gleeful disregard for the rules…an elastic approach to ethics and a Falstaffian appetite for the cut-and-thrust of politics…a sense of entitlement and a belief that the rules did not apply to him, his staff or his loyalists.”

Sound like someone we know? Someone who lacks the good grace to go away? Can you imagine how much grief we would’ve been spared these last few years if the tinpot totalitarian had conceded in 2020 that his time was up and had said with a shrug (as Boris Johnson said earlier today), “Them’s the breaks”?

What has triggered Johnson’s political downfall? What has sparked mass resignations in his Cabinet and mass opposition from his Conservative party cohorts – who, unlike the American GOP hacks, clearly have something approximating spines? Compared to Trump’s serial offenses, Johnson’s are third-degree misdemeanors. For instance: He partied at Downing Street during the worst of the pandemic, and had shifting rationalizations for his behavior; he wanted a Conservative party donor to finance renovations in his apartment; he promoted a Conservative member of Parliament who had a history of sexual misconduct allegations.

The latter episode, which has played out in recent weeks, is what apparently sealed Johnson’s fate. Chris Pincher, whom Johnson named deputy party whip back in February (British PMs can do that) was compelled to quit that post on June 30 after drunkenly groping two men in a bar. Turns out, Johnson knew about previous misconduct allegations when he promoted Pincher last winter. At first he lied, claiming that he didn’t know about Pincher’s history, but a government official blew the whistle and proved that Johnson certainly did. The scandal (penny ante by our low standards) has sparked the mass exodus of Cabinet members who had no stomach for going on TV to defend the leader.

Think about that: Johnson is going down for alleged sexual misconduct he didn’t personally commit – whereas his opposite number in America skated through an entire term, and kept the fealty of GOP lickspittles, despite being personally accused by at least 18 women. But lying about Pincher was merely the last straw. As another London-based report noted today (and this too might sound familiar), “Johnson’s constant lying was only a symptom of a deeper condition, which is an absence of purpose for being in government at all.”

So here’s how they deal with things in Britain: Party lawmakers in Parliament and government ministers resign en masse (one minister said: “I can no longer pirouette around our fractured values”), Johnson steps down as party leader, Johnson stays as prime minister for a few more months until a new nationwide election is held. No muss, no fuss.

I’m well aware that we Americans do things differently, that we don’t have a parliamentary system that can act with great dispatch. But in Britain there’s at least a scrim of civility and a modicum of conscience. Sarah Longwell, an ex-Republican strategist tweeted yesterday, “I will never stop wondering what might have happened if Trump officials had resigned loudly en masse – like our pals across the pond – and told the country what was going on in real time rather than leak anonymously and write books after it was all over.”

And David Frum, a conservative and Bush White House alum, says it best: “Whatever happens next for Boris Johnson, there is literally zero chance that he will organize a mob to sack Parliament or incite his supporters to try to hang the heir to the throne.

No feces smeared in the hallowed halls! No human apes dangling from the balconies! No third-rate lawyers plotting fascism! Instead the Brits are mapping plans for the peaceful transfer of power. Maybe we should try that.