Boris Johnson Faced A Rebellion In His Party. Trump Never Had That Problem.

Comment The resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a testament to the power of elected politicians to hold their leaders accountable. It’s a lesson that has been lost on GOP officials as they have repeatedly weighed how to deal with former President Donald Trump. Johnson’s resignation on Thursday came after a breakdown in support between members of his government and supporters of the Conservative Party. Nothing like that has happened to Trump, not during his first impeachment, not his second impeachment, not after the role he played in the attack on the Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021. In any case, all but a handful of Republican elected officials rallied behind Trump — and continue to do so. Johnson’s resignation came after a long period of decline in his position. He has been on the defensive for months over one scandal after another. He tried to escape his problems and for a while he succeeded. He was defiant in the face of the evidence and then apologized when he couldn’t avoid the truth. The collapse in support this week began when two prominent cabinet members, Rishi Sunak, the government’s finance minister, and Sajid Javid, the health secretary, announced their resignations. By the time Johnson resigned, more than 50 ministers and junior ministers had announced their resignation from their government posts. The day before Johnson announced his resignation as party leader (he said he would remain prime minister until a new party leader was chosen), the public chorus of calls for his resignation continued to grow louder. Adding to these public outcries, members of his cabinet – even some ostensibly loyal ones – met him at Number 10 Downing Street to privately tell him his time was up. These warnings were reminiscent of what happened to President Richard M. Nixon in August 1974, when senior Republicans in Congress, led by Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, went to the White House and told Nixon that his support in the Senate had collapsed . a sign that he likely would have been convicted in an impeachment trial. Rather than go down in history as the first president to be impeached and convicted, Nixon chose the less unpleasant course and resigned from office. Trump has never experienced what Johnson just went through. At no time did Republican leaders—senators, members of the House of Representatives, governors, national or state party officials—collectively try to confront him. After January 6, 2021, there was talk among Trump’s cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment and declaring him unfit for office, but nothing came of it. Lawmakers condemned him for the attack on the Capitol, and then over time began to fall back in line. Johnson was elected Tory leader in 2019 after former prime minister Theresa May resigned, in part because he was seen by other party members as someone with the appeal to win a general election and someone who could hold together a divided party. resolution of the 2016 national referendum on leaving the European Union, the Brexit decision. In a general election later that year, he proved them right, delivering an 80-seat parliamentary majority against a weakened Labor Party with a compromised leader. Recently, however, the party’s fortunes began to look up and Johnson was becoming a political liability. The Conservatives did enough in local elections in May to keep him in power, suffering losses but not as big as some had feared. Late last month, the Conservatives lost two snap elections. Earlier in the month, he survived a no-confidence vote within his own party, but even then, the Tories’ prospects of winning a general election began to fade. Johnson seemed to have an unlimited number of political lives, but his fellow Conservatives found his defense very difficult. With the latest scandal, the revelation that he had been warned about the sexual harassment of Chris Pincher, a Tory politician appointed as deputy chief whip, did nothing about it and claimed he had not been warned, the stench of his leadership became overwhelming. Republicans haven’t gotten to that point with Trump. They have weighed the consequences of challenging someone who remains the dominant force in their party and decided to either vigorously defend him or simply remain silent. They say they are on the verge of regaining a majority in the House and possibly the Senate. They are willing to beat it against the evidence accumulated during hearings from the House Select Committee investigation into the January 6 attack. There are similarities in the characters of Johnson and Trump, so they may have instinctively gravitated towards each other. Even as Johnson maneuvered against May, Trump praised him and gave her, including a famous interview in which he criticized May and spoke highly of Johnson as he arrived for a visit to the UK with May as his host . Neither Johnson nor Trump took the responsibilities of their office seriously. Both preferred hustle and bustle to serious study. They are showmen rather than politicians, given to rhetorical extravagance and flamboyant displays, enjoying the roar of the crowd. Both have a tendency to spread false claims, even when they are obvious. Johnson may have been willing to apologize when caught and cornered, but that was more survival instinct than honesty. His resignation speech was anything but contrite. Trump seems even more incapable of recognizing mistakes. But it’s the differences in the two countries’ political systems that help explain why what happened to Johnson this week never happened to Trump. Britain’s elected officials have much more power to determine who leads their parties and therefore who becomes prime minister through a general election. Johnson’s successor will ultimately be decided by a vote of the full membership of the Conservative Party, loyalists across the UK. But to reach the final vote, those seeking to lead the party must first survive the vote among MPs, which will win the field to the final two candidates. Trump has never been beholden to elected officials of the Republican Party, most of whom initially opposed his bid for president. Other than their ability to endorse someone, they have no significant role in choosing the party’s presidential candidate. Trump owned the GOP on his way to becoming the 2016 nominee, bent it in his direction and defied the party establishment to challenge him. He continues to do so. No one expects incumbent Republicans to turn to Trump at this point. They have invested too much to avoid an internal war with Trump’s most loyal supporters ahead of the 2022 election, where the odds are in their favor. How well Trump-backed candidates fare in November could change the calculus of some GOP leaders as they look toward 2024 and the question of who should be the party’s presidential nominee. But the role elected officials played in forcing Johnson to resign is a reminder of the extent to which Republican leaders in this country — elected lawmakers, former White House officials and members of Trump’s Cabinet — have chosen different road. It is true that political calculations entered heavily into what happened in Britain this week, and political calculations will affect how Republicans respond to Trump in the future. But when faced with what happened on January 6, 2021, only a few Republicans stood up, spoke out, and supported this criticism, regardless of the political consequences.