Why Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are so uniquely dangerous
Events on either side of Atlantic inextricably linked by nature of two men's character
(Both former leaders masters of populist appeal. Picture credit: Wikicommons)
It is not every day that events happening on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean appear so inextricably linked.
But the resignation of Boris Johnson - after a parliamentary committee found him guilty of lying - coming on the day details of the latest charges against Donald Trump were unsealed, feels like one such instance.
On the face of it there’s little obvious to connect the resignation of the 58-year-old former premier after a parliamentary probe into “party gate”, with the detailing of 37 separate charges against the former president.
They were filed after he held onto government records - many of them classified - after he left the White House, and refused to turn them them over to the National Archives when he was asked to do so. They were were held at his Florida estate, “in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, and office space, his bedroom, and a storage room”. They included 31 charges under the 1917 Espionage Act.
“Our laws that protect national defence information are critical to the safety and security of the United States, and they must be enforced,” said Jack Smith, a special counsel with the Department of Justice, who has led the probe into the documents, as well Trump’s role in the Jan 6 attack at the US Capitol.
But step back and pause for just a moment and it is clear that what connects them is an utter sense of arrogance and privilege, a belief that normal rules did not apply to them.
How else do explain Trump’s alleged holding onto the documents even after being issued a subpoena, and trying to pressure his staff into conducting a cover-up.
One of the charges contained in the 44-page indictment is obstruction of justice, and Smith alleged Trump, 76, and a former presidential aide who had remained in his employ, Walt Nauta, even misled the former president’s lawyers by moving boxes of classified documents so the attorneys could not find them.
Like Trump, Johnson is also accused of trying to hold onto materials, arguing whether he was obliged to hand over WhatsApp messages to the parliamentary committee looking into Britain’s response to the Covid pandemic.
The government had asked Johnson to hand over the materials. He eventually provided the information directly to the inquiry, triggering anger at Downing St, occupied since October 2022 by Rishi Sunak.
There is another thing, beyond their sense of entitlement and their long enjoyed impunity, that links the two men - their readiness to portray themselves as victims, usually of some sinister sounding “big state” or some other powerful interest.
“I have received a letter from the Privileges Committee making it clear - much to my amazement - that they are determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of Parliament,” Johnson said in his resignation letter.
“They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.”
He added: “They know perfectly well that when I spoke in the Commons, I was saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like any other minister. They know that I corrected the record as soon as possible.”
(Johnson, pictured in 2021, won a landslide in 2019. Picture credit: Wikicommons)
For those who missed the drama of “party gate”, it focussed on Johnson’s repeated insistence he had not broken his own government’s own lockdown measures, by permitting drinks’ parties for his staff at No 10.
Britons were furious that as they stayed inside, and endured burying loved ones at funerals that permitted no hugging, and were told to remain indoors but for a few hours each day, Johnson and his aides did as they liked.
(One detail that especially angered people, came when it emerged he’d held a party the night before the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, during which Queen Elizabeth was seen sitting alone, far from her family as she again sought to lead by example and observe her government’s rules.)
Trump is similarly a master of playing the victim. At the weekend, in his first public appearance since the charges were made public, he claimed: “This is a political hit job. Republicans are treated far different at the Justice Department than Democrats.”
Speaking to Republicans in Georgia and North Carolina, he vowed he would continue to be a candidate even after being indicted. As he has before, he claimed the filing of charges against him were an attempt to silence his supporters, as much as him personally.
“We’ve got to stand up to the radical left Democrats, their lawless partisan prosecutors. Every time I fly over a blue state, I get a subpoena,” he said at the beginning of a speech that lasted 80 minutes.
“I’ve put everything on the line and I will never yield. I will never be detained. I will never stop fighting for you.”
A third thing connects the two men. The pair of populists are both very good at what they do and they are both willing to say and do anything, they believe will help them. They seemingly do not consider there to be any red lines that cannot be crossed.
In the UK, Johnson first lied and joked, as he led the campaign to take Britain out of Europe, and then pitched himself as an anti-establishment maverick that led him to a massive parliamentary victory in 2019, when the Conservatives seized a swathe of traditionally Labour seats, several dozen of which had not voted for the Conservatives for decades. One of the “red wave” seats to go was Wakefield, held by Labour since 1932.
The billionaire Trump some how managed to model himself as the friend of the downtrodden when he secured a narrow victory in 2016. He has continued to claim that the establishment is trying to silence him.
In the UK, there are some who would back Johnson once again, albeit not in the kind of numbers that appear to offer an obvious route for him to return to the political frontline.
Yet in the US, Trump is very much fighting for a second term, heading the field of Republican hopefuls, and with his chances of securing the nomination again increasing, every time that list is added to and the anti-Trump vote diluted.
Tempted to think Trump is done and dusted?
Just remember that every time he has been written off, be it the Access Hollywood tapes, his being charged over the Stormy Daniels hush money payments, or accused of sexual assault, he has bounced back, oftentimes stronger and more dangerous.
Two hideous sides of the same loathsome, counterfeit coin... I remember when people first began to compare Johnson to Orange45 some pundits opined that this was just a lazy shorthand without substance... sadly this proved to be very wrong... 🤬