Dick Morris: As the UK Goes, So Goes the US
Boris Johnson’s historic landslide victory may have significant implications for our own election in 2020.
The forces that impelled Donald Trump’s improbable election and those behind Boris Johnson’s Tories in general and Brexit in particular have much in common.
As with Trump in 2016, Brexit’s victory in the referendum of 2016 was based on the support of millions of blue-collar voters who rebelled against the prevailing globalist ethic in favor of a reassertion of nationhood and national interest.
In both cases, it was the right-wing party in each country — Republicans and Tories — that led the revolt against established power and wealth.
As with Trump’s 2016 victory, the margins were very small in the initial Brexit referendum.
“Leave” won by 52-48. Now the vast electorate in the U.K. has ringingly reaffirmed the earlier result by giving Johnson a historic win.
Will the same happen in the U.S. in 2020?
The Thatcher revolution of 1979 clearly presaged Ronald Reagan’s victory a year later.
In 1979, she won with a majority of 44 seats.
And, after she held office and was manifestly successful in restoring Britain (making her great again?) she won a second term with a majority of well over 100 seats.
Could the 2019 vote in the U.K. be a harbinger of a landslide Trump victory in 2020? The elements they have in common are striking:
Johnson and Trump both boldly assert putting their country’s national interest first in global politics.
Their opponents, in each case, are largely left-wing nuts. British Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn is all but overtly anti-Semitic. Both Labour in the U.K. and the Democrats in the U.S. are embracing high tax policies making it a virtual crime to be rich.
Both Labour and the 2020 Democrats have turned their backs on the centrist policies of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, lurching to the far left.
And, most importantly, both Johnson and Trump have had early indications of success in turning around their nation’s economies.
As goes the U.K., we hope will go the U.S.
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