Demagogues have more in common with each other than us.
America’s Trump, Britain’s Boris Johnson, and Italy’s Berlusconi aren’t carbon copies of each other, but they do bear a strong resemblance.
For one thing, they lie a lot; and they’ll subvert the rule of law “to save their own skins” if they can get away with it. The Guardian says (see story here),
“The three tenors of showman populism, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Silvio Berlusconi, reached the top through a combination of telegenic clownishness, ‘I alone can fix it’ braggadocio and a shared strain of narcissistic nationalism – and now one faces the judgment of the courts, another has fled the judgment of his peers, while the third contemplates the judgment of the heavens. In the week Berlusconi met his maker[,] … Trump and Johnson respectively contemplated a charge sheet and a verdict of the earthly variety. Both are stunning documents. Over 106 damning pages, Johnson was found unambiguously guilty by the Commons privileges committee of lying serially and seriously to parliament.”
The Guardian says it was Johnson’s “lying to parliament that matters most,” because “parliament cannot hold ministers to account if those same ministers can lie with impunity. It is only the knowledge that they will pay a stiff, possibly career-ending penalty for dishonesty that compels them to confess awkward truths.” I have to say, English solicitude for truth in politics is touching, even though thoroughly Pollyannish out in the former colonies. Our people’s representatives lie so much we just assume nothing in Congress is factual.
“The 44-page indictment of Trump is no less shocking. Again, it’s not so much the original offence – holding on to highly sensitive classified documents, many containing military secrets, after leaving the White House – but rather the subsequent dishonesty.”
Actually, I think it’s the careless handling of secrets that ought to get him into the most trouble, because that’s where the damage is, but technically the Guardian is right: Charges wouldn’t have been brought against Trump if he had simply returned the classified documents, instead of hiding them and lying about having them (see, e.g., story here). His behavior, then and since, makes it appear he wanted to be prosecuted; certainly, he perceives advantages from it, in that he’s using it for fundraising and believes it’s pushing him up in the polls.
“Meanwhile, the shade of Berlusconi will be hoping for celestial clemency for a past that saw him accused of bribery, money-laundering, tax evasion, Mafia connections, multiple corruption charges and paying for sex with a minor nicknamed Ruby the Heart Stealer.”
Now, I didn’t follow Italian politics very much, but I did know he was a media tycoon — basically the Rupert Murdoch of Italy — and very rich: Either the richest, second richest, or third richest person in Italy. I say “was” because he met his Maker last week, and I don’t mean the Pope. The Guardian seems to think that instead of meeting up with “winsome angels” he was “directed towards the downward escalator.” I gather the Guardian wasn’t a fan of his.
Johnson suffered from a disability Trump and Berlusconi didn’t: he “neither made nor squandered a fortune in business.” Take it from him, middle-class poverty sucks. But he was right there with them when it came to “promiscuity, the photo-op buffoonery, the personal shamelessness or the stoking of toxic national chauvinism.” Think of these things as perks of non-accountable power, both private (wealth) and public (political position). Did I forget to mention denial, profession of innocence, and claims of “witch hunts”?
You could hear it in the responses of Johnson and Trump to the copious evidence set out against them, each man resorting to the same familiar claims, even the same vocabulary. Naturally, neither took a trace of personal responsibility. Despite the facts, the dates, even the photographs that anyone could see with their own eyes … both simply asserted they had done nothing wrong, that it was those who had investigated them who should be in the dock: ‘thugs, misfits and Marxists’, according to Trump, a ‘kangaroo court’ according to Johnson. Each man claimed a bogus victimhood, casting himself as the target of a cruel, politically motivated ‘witch-hunt’.”
The amazing thing is, the ignorant masses actually believe this pablum, which thereby transforms a guilty politician from a “lying crook to martyred tribune of his people.” Trump well understands how this works. “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you,” he told his supporters after his arraignment on the Mar-a-Lago docs charges. Johnson used the same trick, insisting Parliament “punished him not because he lied, but ‘to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result.'” To get away with criminal behavior, a demagogue has to recast it as a conflict over policy in which his followers are the victims.
The Guardian notes that Johnson’s ship is taking on more water than Trump’s because Britain doesn’t have something we do (Fox News), and has something we don’t: “the continued existence of the BBC means Britain’s political tribes do not yet exist within wholly separate, sealed-off infospheres.”
Civilization, the Guardian asserts, “rests on our acceptance of the rule of law. … It is the only way we can get along, the only way we can live ordered lives.” Johnson, Trump, and Berlusconi resorted to “trashing the institutions on which we all depend, destroying the trust without which society cannot exist,” in order to cling to power and avoid accountability. “For them, it’s just a tactic, a move from a playbook. But for us, the consequences are lasting. Even out of office, these men have taken a collective reservoir of trust built up over many centuries – and filled it with poison.”
That’s the deal, folks: Demagogues are in it for the power. Not to do anything for you, but to sit in the catbird seat. Trump is a flip-flopper; once a Democrat (most people have forgotten), as a businessman he welcomed transgender women into his beauty pageant (see story here); as a politician, he turned against them (see story here), because he needs the haters’ votes. Johnson, it seems, was just a party boy who liked a good time; Trump is what he is, because there was never any chance he could be a successful demagogue if he remained a Democrat and held onto liberal attitudes. The black- and gay-hating far right offered him far better, and easier, pickings.