As British elections go, so go American elections

Submitted by InfoBrics, authored by William Stroock, author of military fiction…

Boris Johnson, the eccentric and wacky publisher, Mayor of London, MP, and English toff with a bad haircut, won a landslide victory last week. Boris’ Tories won 45% of the vote and gained 65 parliamentary constituencies for a total of 366 seats in the Commons. This gives Johnson an outright majority in the Commons of 80 seats, more than he needs to see Brexit through and begin normal politics anew. Johnson’s victory is a mandate for the remade Conservative Party and a mandate for the resolution of the one issue that has dominated British public life for the last three years, Brexit. For the 2016 Brexit referendum did not end the Brexit debate. Rather, the Leave campaign’s victory began the debate in earnest as establishment Remainers and the Labour Party have tried to scupper Brexit.

Johnson and the Tories ran on several non-Brexit issues. He promised post-Brexit economic growth, more police, more money for the National Health Service, and zero carbon emissions by 2050. But, by far, the number one issue of the campaign was Brexit and here Johnson’s message was pitch perfect. “Get Brexit done!”, he proclaimed over and over again. Johnson campaigned with wit and enthusiasm. In one memorable event, he drove a Union Jack painted backhoe fronted with a Get Brexit Done! placard through a wall of Styrofoam bricks marked GRIDLOCK. Whether visiting a port and extolling the virtues of trade out from under cumbersome EU regulations or working behind the counter at a Kosher deli, Boris Johnson just looked like he was having a great time out on the campaign trail.

Visiting a Kosher deli was a brilliant bit of campaign theatre. Britain’s three hundred thousand Jews are deeply concerned about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and with good reason. Jeremy Corbyn has long been in thrall of Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, which have pledged to destroy Israel. Corbyn has called them both ‘friends’ and was photographed standing with the Hezbollah flag. Corbyn even laid a wreath at the graves of the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre of the Israeli Olympic team. He has often compared Israel to Nazi Germany. Under Corbyn’s leadership, the Labour Party has been wracked by charges of anti-Semitism. Also, for his entire parliamentary career, Corbyn has cuddled up to and coddled the IRA.

Labour’s grim campaign called for the nationalization of major industries and featured a laundry list of free stuff; bus travel, a hundred thousand council homes a year, and Wi-Fi. On the Brexit issue, Corbyn wanted to renegotiate withdrawal terms with the European Union. As if one referendum, two elections, and three years of non-stop arguing weren’t enough, Corbyn wanted to hold a second Brexit referendum to confirm said withdrawal terms.

Throughout most of the race, polls showed the Tories winning a major victory. Despite those polls tightening during the last week, in the end, the public took a look at Labour and didn’t like what it saw. In all, Labour lost 59 seats, including many in the ‘Red Wall’ of Labour strongholds that had stuck with the party for generations. These are working-class voters, long distrustful of the Tories, on whom Corbyn and Labour’s cosmopolitan elite turned their backs in favor of urban dwellers and immigrants.

In the United States the Democrats have their own version of Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders. In fact, after making gains in the 2017 elections, Corbyn told the Vermont socialist that he got many of his ideas from him. Bernie Sanders’ Democrats are no different than Corbyn’s Labour. Young Democrats like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) promise a bevy of free stuff to voters. Representative Ilhan Omar (D, MN) spews anti-Semitic bile about Israel ‘hypnotizing the world’ and has declared that American support for Israel is ‘all about the Benjamins’.  Like Labour, American Democrats are in the grip of a cosmopolitan elite obsessed with boutique issues like environmental doom and gender identity.

In 2016, Democrats lost working-class voters in formerly solidly Democrat states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Today, the concerns of Washington D.C., New York, San Francisco, and Chicago are paramount. While illegal immigration is a slap in the face of regular voters, Democrats embrace it to the point of opposing a border barrier and enforcement of immigration laws. As the British Labour Party refuses to accept the voter’s Brexit verdict, American Democrats will not admit Trump won the 2016 election. After independent counsel Robert Mueller concluded there was no evidence whatsoever of Russian collusion or presidential obstruction, Democrats launched the Ukrainian Impeachment Inquiry. Polls show a majority of Americans oppose impeachment.

Contrasting the Democrats anger and obsessiveness with him, in 2020, President Trump will run a relentlessly positive campaign extolling his accomplishments. These are a booming economy burnished by the new North American trade agreement and a renegotiated trade relationship with China, building the border wall and curtailing illegal immigration, pulling American troops out of combat zones and avoiding new wars.

America’s Democrat party is indistinguishable from the British Labour Party. And a similar fate awaits them.