America’s culture wars are crossing the Atlantic. The polarization, the readiness to see rivals as enemies rather than opponents, the elevation of the leader over the party — they’re all heading our way.
As I write, Conservative Party members are voting to choose their next party leader and thus the next British prime minister. Although we won’t know until the end of the month, it seems very likely that the post will go to Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary. That’s when the Trump-style culture wars will start.
I don’t mean that the two men are alike in character or background. While The Donald’s political affiliations have swerved about a bit over the years, Boris has always been a moderate but committed Tory. Trump’s appeal owes a great deal to his pugnacity, his determination to win, his refusal to forget an enemy. Boris’ lies in his wit, his amiability, his largeness of spirit. Trump keeps telling us what a genius he is, though the corroborating evidence is inconclusive. Boris is one of the cleverest men I have ever known, but usually has the good manners to keep it under wraps.
No, the similarity has to do with the way they divide opinion, provoking passions that go beyond their personalities or policies. Almost from the moment that Boris declared himself a candidate, he became the subject of juvenile media hits. At first, the attacks were vaguely political. A reporter would interview a naturally anti-Boris constituency — say, EU diplomats who blame him for Brexit — and then solemnly report their negative opinions as news. Then the press moved on to former girlfriends and the like. Naturally, such attacks, as with Trump, only serve to shore up support for Boris among his sympathizers.
One incident from the beginning of the campaign illustrates the point. It seems that Boris’ girlfriend (he is divorcing his wife) shouted at him after he spilled wine on her sofa. If you have ever had a girlfriend or ever been one, that probably won’t strike you as a big deal. But her lefty neighbor, a Europhile playwright, called the police and gave a recording of the row to the Guardian newspaper.
Incredibly, the Guardian — which had campaigned high-mindedly for years against what it called “tabloid intrusion” — thought it proper to publish remarks recorded from within someone’s private dwelling.
That’s what culture wars do. They make people drop their standards and tear down all the guardrails to get at politicians they don’t like. Yet it is hard to imagine any of these stories making the slightest difference. People who already disliked Boris felt vindicated. People who liked him felt confirmed in their view that the leftist media would stop at nothing to smear their man. Sound familiar, America?
Partisanship is not new, of course. But Boris, like Trump, is seen as being somehow semi-detached from his party, a force in his own right rather than part of a faction. And this gives supporters and opponents extra zeal. Things become, by definition, personal.
In both countries, the attacks can be downright unhinged. For example, Boris, like Trump, is regularly accused by the Left of being anti-gay. The fact that he was an early supporter of same-sex marriage and walked the length of the Pride march when he was mayor of London makes as little difference as the fact that Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to wave a rainbow flag at the launch of his campaign. “Anti-gay” is simply the modern Left’s way of saying “I don’t like you.” (Other terms, such as “racist” and “misogynist,” have suffered the same dilution.)
Obviously, people have every right to criticize politicians. I am a Boris enthusiast, having known the man for 25 years. I am well aware of his faults, but I’d take the overall package any day. With Trump, as regular readers will know, I am less enthusiastic, though I prefer him to the Democrats. But my point is that it ought to be possible to assess both men without this hysterical projection, this determination to see them either as savior figures or as the embodiment of all evil.
I sometimes wonder whether we see one-man rule as a natural form of government. We evolved in tribal bands with alpha males. Even our science fiction is peopled, Star Wars-like, with emperors. Investing too much, either way, in a leader may simply be a genetic tendency.
In politics, though, it is unhealthy. We should have quit venerating and demonizing our leaders behind when we left absolute monarchy behind. “How small of all that human hearts endure, that part that laws or kings can cause or cure” wrote an earlier Johnson — Samuel, specifically.
It is not all about the big man. Understanding that is a precondition for mature politics — and, indeed, personal happiness.
