Will the UK still laugh at Boris Johnson’s antics if he likens Muslim women to letter boxes again, asks Laura Waddell
Donald Trump has always been a racist, and other -ists beside. Every time there is a new event that would topple any ordinary president – were these ordinary times, and not, as it sometimes feels, like weird, weather-warped end of times – Trump carries on unperturbed by consequences. Opposition from fellow Republicans, where it exists, like the smattering of resignations when he was sworn in, has barely registered. Republicans didn’t abandon Trump during the “pussy grabbing” or Charlottesville episodes, which now feel like previous eras, because so much has happened since. He’s held fast during increasing public horror at the dawning reality of concentration camps.
Why now does it feel like his most recent stunt – telling four congresswoman, born in America, to “go home” – is finally causing a mild ripple in his support, not least with world leaders who’ve condemned it, even if, like Theresa May, they’ve previously held his hand?
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed an unusual resolution to condemn Trump’s “racist comments that have legitimised fear and hatred”, with support from only four Republicans. But others among his base appear less keen to vocally defend Trump than previously – although many do with
the fervour of televangelists. Quieter Republicans haven’t suddenly developed conscience. Standing with the administration and backing Trump’s grotesque campaign is a failed test. But with legal webs tightening around figures who have been close to Trump, like personal friend Jeffrey Epstein, and as 2020 elections loom, perhaps reality is sinking in that there will, one way or another, be a post-trump era. If it’s too late for their souls, perhaps it’s not too late for them to follow the direction of power wherever it surges next, for pay-off in this lifetime at least.
With a new prime minister coming in the UK, we might get our own mini-trump soon, the shadow self of the blimp across the Atlantic. While May has submerged the true catastrophe of Brexit under the surface of stern respectability, frontrunner Boris Johnson has, of course, always traded on clown antics. If he wins the two-horse race, it will be a new challenge for Conservatives to stand under him.
In the circus, who follows a clown? Only other clowns, who pile into the clown car, inevitably going on fire. For all the UK has felt like the wheels have come off entirely in recent years, there has been the feeling that things are even worse stateside. It will be less easy to pretend things are just about holding together, with Johnson leading the