Comment on this story
Comment
The resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a testament to the power of elected politicians to hold their leaders accountable. It is a lesson that has been missed for Republican Party officials as they have repeatedly weighed in on how to deal with former President Donald Trump.
Johnson’s resignation on Thursday came after a collapse of support between members of his government and Conservative MPs. Nothing similar has happened to Trump, neither during his first dismissal, nor his second dismissal, nor even after the role he played in the attack on the Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021. In each case, all but a handful. of Republican elected officials rallied behind Trump, and still do.
Johnson’s resignation came after a long period of decline in his position. He has been on the defensive for months after scandal after scandal. He tried to get out of his troubles and for a while he succeeded. He was defiant in the face of the evidence, then apologized when he could not evade the truth.
The collapse of support this week began when two prominent cabinet members, Rishi Sunak, the government’s treasury minister, and Sajid Javid, the health secretary, announced his resignation. When Johnson resigned, more than 50 ministers and prime ministers had announced their resignation from their government posts.
The day before Johnson announced his resignation as party leader (he said he would continue as prime minister until a new party leader is elected), the public chorus of calls for his resignation continued to grow. . In addition to these public voices, members of his cabinet, even some apparent loyalists, met him at 10 Downing Street to tell him in private that time was up.
Those warnings were reminiscent of what happened to President Richard M. Nixon in August 1974, when top congressional Republicans, led by Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, went to the White House and told Nixon that his support for the Senate had collapsed, a sign that he would probably have been convicted in an impeachment trial. Instead of going down in history as the first president to be ousted and convicted, Nixon chose the less unpleasant path and resigned.
Trump has never experienced what Johnson just went through. At no point have Republican leaders (senators, members of the House, governors, national or state officials) tried to confront them collectively. After January 6, 2021, there was talk among Trump’s cabinet about invoking the 25th Amendment and declaring him unfit for office, but it came to nothing. Lawmakers convicted him of attacking the Capitol and, over time, began to return to the line complying.
Johnson was elected Conservative leader in 2019 following the resignation of former Prime Minister Theresa May, in part because he was seen by other party members as someone with the appeal to win a general election and someone who could hold a party. divided. resolve the 2016 national referendum to leave the European Union, the Brexit decision. In a general election later that year, he proved them right, winning an 80-seat parliamentary majority against a weakened Labor Party with a committed leader.
Recently, however, the party’s fortune was beginning to falter and Johnson was becoming a political responsibility. The Conservatives did enough in the May local elections to keep him in power, suffering losses but not as great as some feared. Late last month, the Conservatives lost two special elections. Earlier this month, he survived a vote of censure within his own party, but even then, the prospect of the Conservatives winning a general election began to wane.
Johnson seemed to have an unlimited number of political lives, but his fellow conservatives found it too difficult to defend him. With the latest scandal, the revelation that he had been warned about the sexual misconduct of Chris Pincher, a Conservative politician appointed deputy for the scandal, did nothing and claimed he had not been warned, the stench of his leadership became too much. .
Republicans have not reached that point with Trump. They have weighed the consequences of challenging someone who remains the dominant force in their party and have decided to defend him strongly or simply shut up. They say they are about to regain a majority in the House and possibly in the Senate. They are willing to deal with the evidence that has accumulated during the investigation hearings of the House select committee of the January 6 attack.
There are similarities in the characters of Johnson and Trump, which may be why they were instinctively attracted to each other. While Johnson was maneuvering against May, Trump was praising and acclaiming her, including a celebrated interview in which he criticized May and praised Johnson when he came to visit the United Kingdom with May as host.
Neither Johnson nor Trump took the responsibilities of their office really seriously. They both preferred bragging to serious study. They are men of spectacle, not statesmen, devoted to rhetorical excess and striking displays, delighting in the roar of the crowd. Both are prone to spreading false claims, even when it is obvious.
Johnson might have been willing to apologize when he was caught and run over, but that was more a survival instinct than sincerity. His resignation speech was anything but contrite. Trump seems even more incapable of acknowledging the mistakes.
But it is the differences in the political systems of the two countries that help explain why what happened to Johnson this week has never happened to Trump.
British elected officials have much more power to determine who runs their parties and therefore who will become prime minister through a general election. Johnson’s successor will finally be determined by a vote of the full members of the Conservative Party, the grassroots loyalists across the UK. But to reach the final vote, those seeking to lead the party must first survive the votes among members of parliament, which win the field over the last two candidates.
Trump has never been on duty with elected Republican Party officials, most of whom initially opposed his presidential candidacy. Beyond their ability to endorse someone, they play no major role in selecting the party’s presidential candidate. Trump hijacked the GOP on his way to becoming the 2016 candidate, tipped him in his direction, and challenged the party establishment to challenge him. He keeps doing it.
No one expects the incumbent Republicans to turn against Trump right now. They have invested too much to avoid a civil war with Trump’s most loyal supporters before the 2022 election, where the odds are in his favor. The good performance of Trump-backed candidates in November could change the calculation of some GOP leaders as they look toward 2024 and the question of who should be the party’s presidential candidate.
Still, the role that elected officials played in forcing Johnson to resign is a reminder of the degree to which Republican leaders in that country — elected lawmakers, former White House officials and members of Trump’s cabinet. – they have chosen a different path.
It is true that political calculations went significantly into what happened in Britain this week and political calculations will affect the way Republicans respond to Trump in the future. But in the face of what happened on January 6, 2021, only a few Republicans stood up, spoke out loud and supported these criticisms, regardless of the political consequences.