Farewell to the grandstanders: the collapse of right’s political icons
From Trump to Bolsonaro and Johnson, they appear to be on the ropes, if not totally down for the count
It has been one hell of a year for the political right. They felt like they were on an unstoppable upward trajectory towards the end of 2016 when they got Trump in the White House and the UK left the European Union courtesy of the unbridled ambition of a handful of Tories and UKIP. It seemed to many like things couldn’t possibly get worst until Jair Bolsonaro, the tropical Trump, wielding Facebook as dangerously as his American counterpart did Twitter, came to power in Brazil three years later. I’m not sure if you know much about Bolsonaro but if Trump were a spicy Tex-Mex dish, douse that in extra hot sauce and serve it with a side of chaos and conspiracy and voila! Bolsonaro’s political persona combines Trump’s squirm inducing brashness and a Latin American telenovela’s dramatic flair.
Biden’s victory was a bit of a setback, so were the results in the midterms more recently — but things have really turned sour since and Lula’s victory appeared to be the beginning of the long awaited political reckoning. The year started with Bolsonaro supporters attempting a January 6 style coup against the government of Lula after Bolsonaro lost Brazil’s election late in 2022. He has now been issued a political ban until 2030 for his “appalling lies”. Last year the UK’s Tory party went through three prime ministers in almost as many weeks (one of whom had a term shorter than the lifespan of a lettuce — she didn’t appreciate the comparison), and now Boris Johnson, who got them into this quagmire, has fled his job as an MP after a privileges committee found he lied to parliament over partygate. On his way out as prime minister Boris Johnson made a reference to the Terminator movie signing off from the despatch box with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “hasta la vista, baby”. He was aiming for a swift return. Safe to say it no longer looks that way.
Fox News has been completely humbled and its main presenter Tucker Carlson sacked as Trump faces a series of charges, some of which could see him face prison time, including a recently unsealed indictment which contains 37 felony charges which could result in hundreds of years of prison time. That isn’t to mention the fact that Trump has already been found guilty of sexual abuse in case brought forth by E. Jean Carroll for which he has to pay her $5 million in damages. Trump’s push to appeal the decision has been described by Carroll as “magical thinking.” Talk about being completely fucked.
And fate it seemed was hungry for more drama still, as Trump and Johnson’s predecessor, Italy’s Berlusconi died last weekend, who has widely been described as the “Trump before Trump.” He was more dangerous in some ways. In the US, Trump is about as bad as it gets. It wasn’t just his politics but also his style. Whereas in Italy, Berlusconi was only the gateway drug to something much more sinister. In 1994 that he gloated that he “constitutionalised the fascists” when he allowed Italian Social Movement into his coalition government. Georgia Meloni, who was then the youth minister, is now Italy’s prime minister. In a dramatic plot twist, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia is now a part of Meloni’s governing coalition.
All three men (Berlusconi, Trump, Johnson) grew up in or came to fame because of their roles in or relationships with the media. Boris Johnson was a presenter and then journalist, Berlusconi famously owned an Italian media empire which broadcast his party’s propaganda and Trump relied on the hype the media generated around him to come into fame and wealth. The parallels between Trump and Berlusconi are more obvious. Mattia Ferraresi, an Italian journalist listed the many of the eerie similarities: “The two had exorbitant egos, openly admired strongmen, were obsessed with TV and had a penchant for kitsch furniture and lewd jokes. Perhaps most important, they both possessed an instinctive ability to tap into the passions of the populace. One came from real estate, the other from media: They met halfway, in the borderland of entertainment.” Berlusconi acknowledged as much telling the Italian daily Corriere della Sera that “some analogies are evident” when his political alter ego triumphed over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Commenting on Trump’s rise after years reporting on Berlusconi, Rachel Donadio felt a perplexing sense of déjà vu. “I’ve seen this movie before,” she wrote for the Atlantic.
Johnson was what Trump and Berlusconi would be like if they came from political backgrounds. Despite the fact that they were all libertines, they managed to deliver a particularly appealing message to many people on the right who felt stigmatised and excluded as their countries changed in a way they were powerless to reverse, longing for a past of purity and greatness which if we’re honest didn’t really exist. If the nationalism these men embraced was a new religion, its garden of Eden had no Muslims or Mexicans.
Trump, Johnson, and Berlusconi, unabashedly professing their “tell-it-like-it-is” gospel of political nonsense, boldly positioned themselves as defenders of the common man, scornfully plowing through the new sensibilities of the emerging elite with their transgressive tirades and storied misdeeds. Janan Ganesh best captured the political opportunity they exploited as the left slowly grew in power and confidence in the culture war: “At some indistinct point in the recent past, the left lost its monopoly on rebellion. To rebel was to be conservative or libertarian. It was more transgressive to buck the sensitivities of the age on race, gender, sexual preference, climate change, civil liberties, mental health and religion than to walk on eggshells around them.”
But the character of the men which championed this new politics also contributed to its eventual downfall. Unlike politicians before them they didn’t feign good character. As one Financial Times writer put it “they admitted being sinners, thereby giving their supporters licence to forgive themselves for their own failings too — a fundamental difference with the hero cult of fascism.” The licence they were afforded by supporters was seen as necessary as they were instruments bringing about the greater good so whatever the allegations — rape, corruption, tax fraud, mishandling classified documents, lying to parliament — they could all be forgiven. We needed to overlook it all because he will make the country great again. But their failings eventually brought them down. They weren’t the just outlaws their supporters thought they were, a group of free-wheeling bandits persecuted by a vengeful liberal elite. They were simply outlaws and definitely not the cool kind. Earlier this year I noted in my diary that several high-profile pretenders were being exposed left and right, from Liz Truss to Sam Bankman-Fried, and here is another case. The words of V.S Naipaul sprung to mind as all the stories unfolded:
“He had wanted to make his country great. But he wasn’t himself a great man; and perhaps the country couldn’t be made great.”
