BoRRIS JOHNSON RESIGNS AS UK's PM

What happens when the secret sauce dries up
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Trump and Johnson meet in New York City in 2019.
When populists fall, they need dragging out the door.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, now clinging desperately to office, rose to power on the force of an untamed personality and a distant acquaintance with the truth. Those same traits have driven his current crisis to Shakespearean depths.

As dozens of officials quit his scandal-ridden government, piling pressure on him to resign, Johnson’s case reveals the perils of a political career built on a personality cult rather than a moored ideology -- and the price of substituting a leader’s ego for the national interest.

It’s a familiar story on this side of the Atlantic.

Comparisons between Johnson and another golden-haired rule breaker, ex-US President Donald, have generally been overblown, even if both weaponized resentment against elites to win power.

Despite his extraordinary success in winning over White, working-class voters from the Labour Party, much as Trump did with rust-belt blue-collar Democrats, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is hardly anti-establishment. Exceedingly well-read and a talented writer, Johnson came through Britain’s pipeline to power -- from exclusive private school Eton and Balliol College at Oxford University. It’s unlikely Johnson would have survived a lifetime of scrapes were it not for the class deference still embedded in British public life.

Trump, in contrast, has never moved in high society or felt comfortable in the club the way Johnson has. The key to his magnetic identification with voters who felt themselves left out of the American dream was that he understood what it was to be spurned by elites -- in his case by Manhattan old money that saw him as vulgar.

Sharp differences between British and American political systems and societies also limit most comparisons between the former President and the man he once called “Britain Trump.” But they’ve both shown how a country’s political system can melt down when their creed of government by chaos gains uncontrollable momentum.

No one could credibly argue that Britain, facing high inflation, the aftermath of the pandemic and rising industrial unrest, is currently being governed in any sense of the term. It’s reeling from crisis to crisis caused by its leader’s scandals and lies. Johnson has also shown personal contempt for the rule of law. He became the first UK PM in history to be found breaking the law in office by attending parties in defiance of his own coronavirus lockdown rules, for instance.

And in their darkest hours, both leaders suffered the delusional downfalls of demagogues, including an adamant refusal to cede power. Though Johnson has hardly approached Trump’s incitement of a violent insurrection to stay in power, history suggests that any other modern British Prime Minister faced with a revolt from his cabinet would have accepted reality and resigned days ago. But Johnson refuses, following the playbook of those rabble-rousing politicians who refuse to give an inch to political pressure.

The coming days could highlight a crucial difference between the US and Britain. Trump’s Republican Party never forced him out. (GOP lawmakers had the chance but overwhelmingly voted against convicting him in two impeachment trials.) Johnson’s Conservative Party, fed up with their beating in the polls, may be about to lower the ax; they could change parliamentary party rules that preclude another confidence vote until next year in order to force him out.

If that happens, it will be a cautionary tale for Trump.

Johnson only survived this long because his party saw him as its best chance of winning power. But now that his secret sauce with voters has dried up, he’s vulnerable. Trump, who drove away suburban moderates in 2020, could suffer the same fate if sufficient GOP voters come to see him as a general election liability -- or simply tire of the cacophonous destruction of a wild political ego.
 
But really, Africans have a lesson to learn. If a govt face integrity issues, the ministers lead the way, and they tell their boss on his face. Both Thesesa May and Cameron resigned when their tenure became untenable, yet we have never heard that their country or govt is unstable. My guy tells me you can't even notice when it's election time coz nobody seem to care. Voter turnout inakuanga 50 - 60 %.
Hapa KE elections become a matter of life and death. Nothing serious is going on for the next 1-2 months coz politicians are campaigning. Turnout ya suraku 98%. I think voting is for peasants
 
Othello said:
But really, Africans have a lesson to learn. If a govt face integrity issues, the ministers lead the way, and they tell their boss on his face. Both Thesesa May and Cameron resigned when their tenure became untenable, yet we have never heard that their country or govt is unstable. My guy tells me you can't even notice when it's election time coz nobody seem to care. Voter turnout inakuanga 50 - 60 %.
Hapa KE elections become a matter of life and death. Nothing serious is going on for the next 1-2 months coz politicians are campaigning. Turnout ya suraku 98%. I think voting is for peasants
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Very sad
 
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