Always the same. People cling to their leaders, no matter how obviously inept or corrupt or liars or criminals they are, for one identical reason: self-love. Admitting that you have made a mistake or that you have been taken for a fool hurts pride. It is better, less painful, to continue in the same direction, like a bull to the sword.
Let each reader choose the case they want in the country they want. I will limit myself to pointing out the lesson contained in the stories, parallel in time, of two previously admired democracies, the United States and the United Kingdom; of two characters, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, both betrayed this week, more than ever, for the lies they let go, but their followers insist on seeing them as heroes and martyrs.
After a 14-month investigation led by a committee of seven British MPs, four of them from his own party, Johnson received the verdict on Thursday. He repeatedly lied to Parliament when he was prime minister, insisting that during the covid lockdown he and members of his government had not violated the laws they had imposed themselves. The truth is that, while normal people had to shut themselves up at home and couldn’t even get together with relatives to mourn the deaths of grandparents or parents, Johnson and his family held continuous parties in the official residence, on 10 of Downing Street.
The impact the blond faker had on his country was as historic as it was devastating. More than any other factor, he was responsible, with his charismatic buffoonery, for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. He tipped the scales in favor of Brexit in the referendum that was held this coming week seven years ago. Fallen from grace, like Brexit itself, he is no longer prime minister, or even a member of parliament. With credibility on the floor, he had no choice but to resign. But without contrition, or dignity. He denied that he had lied, which is like denying that two and two make four, and insulted the committee members who had convicted him. They were “crazy” and “hypocrites” and “political assassins”.
His loyalists within the Conservative party, those who believed in him fervently, have not wanted to admit their mistake. They support him, in defense of their own egos, to the death and beyond.
We see the Johnson phenomenon as if in a mirror on the other side of the ocean, with the difference that, being the United States and dealing with Trump, the image is bigger and more grotesque. Trump shares with Johnson a voracious narcissism and a total absence of values. Where the former and possibly future president of the United States surpasses him is in the bar and, by all indications, in criminality.
After being indicted on Tuesday on 37 counts of stealing classified documents, obstruction of justice and perjury, Trump declared that he was the victim of “political persecution” and had suffered “the most evil and heinous abuse of power by the history”. Lawyers who had been close to him, such as former Attorney General William Barr, disagree. “If only half of what he is accused of was true – he said – Trump would be fried”.
As a columnist for The New York Times wrote, Trump “treats the law with the contempt of a mob boss, with the difference that the boss tries harder to cover his tracks.” Trump’s language combines that of a messiah with that of Al Capone. “In 2016 I declared that I was your voice,” he said at a political event in Texas. “Today I add: I am your warrior, I am your justice, and, for those who have been betrayed, I am your revenge.” The message works. His followers cannot admit the painful truth that they have succumbed to the most absurd deception in their country’s political history.
Polls show they believe Trump is not the criminal but the victim. 81% of Republican voters wanted to be convinced that the charges against him are politically motivated, that the current president, Joseph Biden, has embarked on a witch hunt. In other words, they think they live in a mafia state like Russia, where the justice system is at the service of the president’s whims. Indeed, this is how Trump understands it, and that is why he says that when he returns to the White House he will pursue Biden “and his family” and take revenge beyond the law, a concept unknown to him.
The British look in the mirror of the United States and think that they are not so bad. Only half the Tories are with Johnson, they point out, not 81%. They say Johnson has no chance of becoming prime minister again, not in the short term, not like Trump, who could take the White House again in January 2025.
What they don’t see is that, hopefully, and with a modicum of measure by enough voters, Trump won’t be president again, and may even be impeached, so for now it is not at all clear that the US must fall into a catastrophe worse than that of its cousins ??on the other side of the ocean.
The catastrophe has already happened in the UK. Johnson’s egomania, the tremendous persuasiveness of his demagoguery, took the country out of the European Union, leading it to economic ruin. The OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, predicts that this year and next the British economy will suffer more than all other countries in the G-20, the club of rich countries, except Russia.
The most amazing thing, the most insane thing, the thing that tells us everything about the weight of pride in human decisions, is that the British political parties, Government and opposition, dare not admit publicly that Brexit was a failure . They don’t do it because they know that the majority who voted to leave the EU in June 2016 are not ready to admit their mistake, they don’t want to face the pain of admitting that they were ripped off. They know that if they did, if they drew the attention of the gorilla in the room, they would lose their votes. Just like Republican politicians know that if they called Trump for what he really is, a criminal clown, a Joker, they would lose the votes of the tribe he leads.
what is the lesson easy That in politics, as in everything, eternal history repeats itself, the source of human idiocy, always: everything is vanity.
