Boris Johnson is in big trouble. The British Prime Minister, it has recently been disclosed, held at least twelve different large parties at a time when when his country was under a severe pandemic lockdown. The extent of these violations of his own government's rules is so big that it may lead to a police investigation. The resulting outrage in England has caused Johnson's approval rating to plummet, with fully two thirds of the country wishing he would step down. Even his own conservative Tory party has also turned on him, with the Guardian reporting that 48% of voters who supported him in 2019 would like for him to, as former conservative cabinet minister David Davis put it, “In the name of God, go.”
Obviously what Johnson did was extremely stupid, and while he has resisted calls to remove himself from office, it's clear that his standing as both a prime minister and a Tory have been diminished. While I can certainly understand the anger at Johnson, I can't help but wish that some of that same outrage at a leader's corruption and incompetence could find its way to the US.
When you compare what Johnson did with how Donald Trump handled the pandemic when he was president, it's seems clear to me that Trump's response was far worse. Yes, Johnson holding parties during a lockdown was bad, but was it as bad as Trump's initial dismissal of the pandemic ("a liberal hoax"), and then his downplaying of its severity("it will disappear when the weather gets warmer")? Or when Trump openly pushed for people to try hydroxychloroquine as a cure for covid, despite there being no research showing that it worked? And his even more absurd comments about injecting bleach? And then there was the rally that he held in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, in which thousands of unmasked rally attendees sat next to each other and screamed. Add to that the fact we now know that our former president tested positive for covid and chose not to tell anyone for over a week, exposing hundreds of people to it, and it's clear that the Tory party's ability to see incompetent corruption for what it is in their leader is a quality that the Republican party lacks.
But then Trump's terrible reaction to Covid-19 is old news. What about his more recent comments? At a rally last Sunday, Trump openly showed sympathy for the January 6th. rioters who are currently in jail, and he promised that if he runs and wins the White House in 2024, he will pardon them. So, the Republican party, the party that has successfully branded itself as the party of law and order, is still supporting a former president who wants to pardon rioters who attacked and beat police officers, stole their shields to smash in windows, and invaded the floors of congress. How can the Republican party attack Democrats for wanting to "defund the police", (a stand that only a handful of Democrats have actually supported), while cheering for Trump's call to pardon the violent insurrectionists?
To be fair, there has been some criticism on the right for Trump, with Senator Lindsay Graham saying that his pardon comments were inappropriate. But even those comments were weak, and Trump immediately responded in an interview, saying that Graham "doesn't know what the hell he's talking about". Anyone who's followed Graham and Trump for the past few years knows how this will end, with Graham going to Mar-o-Lago to beg Trump for forgiveness, followed by him announcing that if Trump wins in 2024, he can pardon as many police beating protestors as he wants to.
A few months ago I wrote how angry I was at how the Democratic party's rightful rebuke of Andrew Cuomo for his multiple sexual harassment charges compared to the Republican party's ignoring the 26 charges of sexual assault or rape made against Trump. And here we are again. I hate to be a broken record when it comes to Trump, but I just continue to be amazed at how he gets away with saying and doing the most horrible and incompetent things, with his command of the Republican party never really wavering. I wish that the Tory party's reaction to Boris Johnson could happen here with the Republican party and Trump, but then Trump has never really been a politician like Johnson, instead he's a unique figure, equal parts showman, con artist, mob boss, cult figure, and white nationalist leader. While he currently is under investigation for both his business interests and his attempts to steal the 2020 election while he was president, I fear that he will walk away unscathed from these charges just as he has so many times before. Putting it bluntly, there is no bottom with Trump and the Republican party, and the possibility of him re winning the White House in 2024 is terrifyingly real.
No comments:
Post a Comment