The US has the closer to the original meaning, because mugquomp is Massachusett for "war leader". In that original sense (and wizards are in general quite beyond the times), "Supreme Mugwump" would be close to "supreme allied commander" or "shogun". And indeed Dumbledore leads a faction through three different wars. But actually, it's quite clever really, because what he does is more similar to a tribal war chief than a general, because it doesn't seem like any nation of wizards keeps a standing army.
Of course, it's a open-carry society, so there's some expectation of people being armed.
I've been rereading Harry Potter this month, and the politics seem pretty odd. I'm not entirely sure what they're supposed to resemble, other than "all adults are useless". The population of wizards in Britain has to be, what, 100k? That's kind of like a city council, which can be extremely dysfunctional, but rarely this bad when they have sovereign power. Actually, it's more like Iceland (pop ~300k), or Greenland (pop ~60k), neither of which are this dumb. It seems like there's no one in the wings to take on Fudge -- essentially no loyal opposition institutionalized -- which is pretty weird. Sometimes it feels like British civil service, sometimes like a tribe, and sometimes a dictatorship.
Oh, I get it now. The Ministry of Magic is a typical African "republic" run by a dictator. Everyone is armed, every once in a while an armed insurrection starts based on bloodlines, despite lots of gold to mine everyone stays stuck in the past, Gringotts is the IMF, no one notices bribery, rules are strict only when the ruler hates you, wars involve really stupid stuff like bombing the other side of the airport the plane took off from (an actual thing that happened this century in the Congo). Literal stacks of small heads (not quite shrunken) in the Black residence. Knockturn Alley is literally right off the high street, but obviously the right bribes happen to keep that from ever being cleaned up.
So I guess Dumblydore isn't an independent. There aren't parties in the British Wizarding World. There are simply the government, and warlords. At least Albus is an official warlord.
Of course, it's a open-carry society, so there's some expectation of people being armed.
I've been rereading Harry Potter this month, and the politics seem pretty odd. I'm not entirely sure what they're supposed to resemble, other than "all adults are useless". The population of wizards in Britain has to be, what, 100k? That's kind of like a city council, which can be extremely dysfunctional, but rarely this bad when they have sovereign power. Actually, it's more like Iceland (pop ~300k), or Greenland (pop ~60k), neither of which are this dumb. It seems like there's no one in the wings to take on Fudge -- essentially no loyal opposition institutionalized -- which is pretty weird. Sometimes it feels like British civil service, sometimes like a tribe, and sometimes a dictatorship.
Oh, I get it now. The Ministry of Magic is a typical African "republic" run by a dictator. Everyone is armed, every once in a while an armed insurrection starts based on bloodlines, despite lots of gold to mine everyone stays stuck in the past, Gringotts is the IMF, no one notices bribery, rules are strict only when the ruler hates you, wars involve really stupid stuff like bombing the other side of the airport the plane took off from (an actual thing that happened this century in the Congo). Literal stacks of small heads (not quite shrunken) in the Black residence. Knockturn Alley is literally right off the high street, but obviously the right bribes happen to keep that from ever being cleaned up.
So I guess Dumblydore isn't an independent. There aren't parties in the British Wizarding World. There are simply the government, and warlords. At least Albus is an official warlord.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto