Always the same. People cling to their leaders, even though they are manifestly inept or corrupt or liars or criminals, for the same reason: self-respect. Acknowledging that one has been wrong or that they have been taken for a fool hurts pride. Better, less painful, to continue in the same direction, like a bull to the sword.
Let each reader choose the case they want in the country they want. I will limit myself to pointing out the moral contained in the stories, parallel in time, of two formerly admired democracies, the United States and the United Kingdom; of two characters, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, both betrayed this week, like never before, for how deceitful they are, but whose followers insist on seeing them as heroes and martyrs.
After a 14-month investigation, led by a committee of seven British MPs, four of them from his own party, Johnson received the verdict on Thursday. He repeatedly lied to Parliament when he was prime minister, insisting that during the covid lockdown he and members of his government had not broken laws they had imposed themselves. The truth was that while normal people had to lock themselves in their homes and could not even get together with relatives to mourn the deaths of their grandparents or parents, Johnson and his family celebrated continuous parties at his official residence, 10 Downing Street. .
The impact that the blond fake had on his country was as historic as it was devastating. More than any other factor, he was responsible, with his charismatic buffoonery, for the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. He tipped the balance in favor of Brexit in the referendum held seven years ago this week. Disgraced, like Brexit himself, he is no longer prime minister, not even a parliamentarian. With credibility in tatters, he had no choice but to resign. But without contrition or dignity. He denied lying, which is like denying that two and two equals four, and insulted the committee members who had convicted him. They were "crazy" and "hypocrites" and "political murderers."
His faithful within the Conservative Party, those who fervently believed in him, have not been able to admit their mistake. They stand behind him, defending his own egos, to death and beyond.
We see the Johnson phenomenon as in a mirror on the other side of the ocean, with the difference that, being the United States and dealing with Trump, the image is bigger and more grotesque. Trump shares with Johnson a voracious narcissism and a total absence of values. In what the former and possibly future president of the United States surpasses him is in impudence and everything indicates that in criminality.
After being indicted Tuesday on 37 counts of theft of secret documents, obstruction of justice and misrepresentation, Trump declared that he was the victim of "political persecution" and that he had suffered "the most evil and egregious abuse of power in history." . Lawyers who have been close to him, such as his former attorney general William Barr, disagree. "If only half of what they accuse him of turns out to be true," he said, "Trump is fried."
As a columnist for The New York Times wrote, Trump "treats the law with the disdain of a mafia kingpin, except that the kingpin does more to cover his tracks." Trump's language combines that of a messiah with that of Al Capone. “In 2016 I declared that I was your voice,” he said at a political rally in Texas. "Today I add: I am your warrior, I am your justice, and, for those who have been betrayed, I am your revenge." The message sinks. His followers cannot contemplate the painful truth that they have succumbed to the grossest deception in their country's political history.
The polls show that they believe that Trump is not the criminal but the victim. 81% of Republican voters wanted to convince themselves that the charges against him are politically motivated, that the current president, Joseph Biden, has launched a witch hunt. In other words, they think they live in a mafia state like Russia, where the justice system is at the service of the president's whims. This is indeed how Trump understands it, and that is why he says that when he returns to the White House he will persecute Biden "and his family" and will take revenge on them beyond the law, a concept unknown to him.
The British look in that mirror that the United States offers them and think that they are not so bad. Only half of the Tories are with Johnson, they point out, not 81%. They say that Johnson has no chance of being prime minister again, not any time soon, not like Trump, who could occupy the White House again in January 2025.
What they do not see is that, with luck, and with a minimum of restraint on the part of enough voters, Trump will not be president again, and may even end up in prison, with which, at this time, it is not at all clear that The United States is going to fall into a catastrophe worse than that of its cousins on the other side of the pond.
The catastrophe has already happened in the UK. Johnson's egomania, the tremendous persuasiveness of his demagogy, drove his country out of the European Union, leading it to economic ruin. The OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, forecasts that this year and next the British economy will suffer more than all the other countries in the G-20, the club of rich countries, except Russia.
What is fantastic, what is insane, what tells us everything about the weight of pride in human decisions, is that the British political parties, Government and opposition, do not dare to admit publicly that Brexit was a failure. They do not do it because they know that the majority who voted to leave the EU in June 2016 are not willing to admit their mistake, they do not want to face the pain of admitting that they were being fooled. They know that if they did, if they caught the attention of the bouncer in the room, they would lose their votes. Just like Republican politicians know that if they pointed out Trump for what he really is, a criminal clown, a Joker, they would lose the votes of the tribe he leads.
What is the moral? Easy. That in politics, as in everything, the eternal history is repeated, the source of human idiocy, always: everything is vanity.
