Corbyn, Trump and Churchill

Perhaps a counter-intuitive observation, but Trump’s nearest bedfellow in the UK, apart from the obvious Farage, is Jeremy Corbyn. 

Like Trump, Corbyn is a populist “anti-politician”, although his populism only extends to his own membership and a handful of left radicals in the population outside it. Despite being on the left rather than the right, Corbyn agrees with Trump policies on non-interventionism, economic isolationism, anti-“elitism” and has the same attitude to twisting the truth for the greater good of the cause, always blaming the media for bias when caught out. It is a perfect Molotov-Ribbentrop meeting of far left with far right.

But we should also mark the desolate triumph of Trump. It is difficult to find any kind of precedent in America’s history of a person so unsuited to office, from his antics as a documented sex pest, to his ignorance of history and geopolitics, his inability to avoid conflicts of personal and political interest and his simple habit of casual lying. Or his seeming lack of value – perhaps unique among presidents of the last century or so – for democracy itself.

Trump has, reportedly, reinstated a bust of Churchill in his office, citing him as an “inspiration”. It also seems clear that Churchill would have despised Trump, not only as a great man might reasonably despise a little one unexpectedly catapulted to high office; but because Trump seems intent on undermining the two great post-war pillars that Churchill’s work helped create: NATO and the EU.

Churchill was, of course, as well as a statesman, an accomplished historian. It is his sense of history which is so desperately lacking in the politicians of today. Those few who do will recognise the whiff of the 1930s – his wilderness years – in today’s political climate; a period when populations were also desperate for a change.

Trump is not Hitler; not yet, anyway. But the news today, that not only is his Secretary of State hopelessly compromised but the entire team of senior civil servants under him have refused to take part in this charade of a useful place for America in the world, augurs terribly for the free world over the next few years, in the face of a resurgent and aggressive Russia appeased by its leader.

This is not a bunch of whining liberals complaining about George W Bush, a man who, for all his flaws, had a sense of decency and duty. This is people of all political stripes aghast at the victory of a man who appears to have no principles at all.

These are, to be frank, dark times. We can only hope that, somewhere, there is a Churchill observing from the sidelines, who can at some point step forward and bring some sense back to the post-war order.