US Elections:
As Trump backers praise Brexit, UK and US are nations united in rage
Patriotic, misogynistic mood among Republicans is more lurid than what’s seen in
Britain, but the echo is distinct
Donald Trump’s noisy, shambolic and furious convention in Cleveland broke every
rule in the US campaigners’ handbook – including the relatively esoteric one
that says British politics never, ever gets a mention. Deemed both obscure and
irrelevant, the affairs of the UK have been reliably invisible in the US
political argument since 1945.
But not this week. Alongside a speech from a would-be first lady rapidly exposed
as plagiarised and a primetime address from a US senator drowned by boos from
the convention floor, the Republican gathering in Cleveland also recorded
another first. It made room for interest in Britain.
Or rather in last month’s decision to leave the European Union. In fringe
meetings and from the podium, the vote for Brexit was regularly cited as a
source of inspiration for Republicans. As one pro-Trump T-shirt spotted in
Cleveland put it, showing the two nations’ flags alongside each other: “1st the
UK. Now, the US. Take back America.”
For some Republicans, the 23 June decision offered heartening proof that a cause
once dismissed by pollsters, reviled by elites and written off as a reactionary
embarrassment can nevertheless prevail.
Trump may be trailing Hillary Clinton now, they said, but leave once lagged
behind remain.
The Trump-backing pollster Kellyanne Conway told a panel that, just as there had
been shy leavers in Britain, she believed there were “hidden Trump” supporters –
Americans cowed by the “social desirability” of being seen to oppose the reality
TV star in polite company.
Others drew ideological comfort from the Brexit precedent. Before he was booed
off the stage, Trump’s defeated rival, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, told the
convention: “Something powerful is happening ... We’ve seen it in the United
Kingdom’s unprecedented Brexit vote to leave the European Union. Voters are
overwhelmingly rejecting big government.”
But while the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage enjoyed his trip to Cleveland,
milking the applause of admiring US conservatives on the fringes of the
convention, the arresting parallel between the current politics of the two
countries is one far less comfortable.
- thetelegraph
|