On Boris, Trump and the fightback of the establishment

Following the "coup" to throw out Boris, I feel like this is the end of a strange era, and it is worth writing a longer article about it.

He just puts on a persona?
He believes rules don't apply to him?

There used to be an argument whether Boris's goofiness and "bull in a china shop" fumbling around is just a persona he puts on, when he is in fact as calculating as every other "evil" politician. I have always believed that there is some - maybe small - elements of genuine "childishness" in him. This is what makes him stand out from the rest of the lot, and why he is likeable. But this also makes him quite gullible to political backstabbing, as Gove demonstrated before, and now we see it again.

A related accusation that was constantly raised is that Boris believes that "rules don't apply to him". I don't think that's what he believes - specifically, the "to him" part. Rather, he just has this care-free attitude about everything, that he doesn't take rules or anything else seriously enough. It's not like he thinks he is the only one who should have this privilege - everyone else also shouldn't take things too seriously. Again, that makes him a fun person to be around, but these are not necessarily the sort of character you want from a good leader or prime minister.

In short, his unique characters are the reason for his success and also his demise.

Boris and Trump

The media will keep reminding you that "Boris is like Trump": both "populist", "far-right", "divisive" and are just law-breaking criminals. Like they are the only ones who did those "divisive" things - are they? Let's see:

Boris "unlawfully" prorogued parliament? Well John Major did exactly that to serve his own political purpose.

Boris breaks international law (tears up Brexit treaty)? Well the EU themselves selectively obey EU law, such as France and Germany regularly protect its domestic businesses from foreign competition, against EU free-market directives. I remember there were stories saying that's why British train companies don't get their contracts.

Oh and did I tell you that John Major smuggled the country into EU without a referendum? Bill Clinton's lie about his oval office oral sex? Tony Blair's lie about weapons of mass destruction? Yes, the media did go after them, but never with the kind of personal venom they direct to Boris and Trump. The media is not satisifed in just bringing them down - they want them to be shamed forever, that it is a national shame that such people were elected in the first place, that they can have no place in public life ever again. They should just be "un-personed".

They both do have major character flaws (and indeed people in the HK localism movement as well). It is unfortunate that all these people that disrupts the establishment order have the same character flaws - but if they are "normal" politicians, they would have seen sense and "joined the game" instead of fighting against it.

The strange brief period of 2016-2022

I hope future history will mark this period, even if it is ultimately just a brief upset and doesn't change the course of history. We had a few good years where we had Trump in US, Brexit and Boris in UK, and even Hongkongers managed to stand up against Beijing and went violent for a bit in 2019 (although that one was defeated much more quickly). There seemed to be a bit of hope against woke-ism, and the never-ending destruction of national identity might be arrested. But within a few years that was all over. With the unleash of the China virus, the world was turned upside down and all those progress we made were undone.

The establishment fightback has taken time, but by gunning down Trump and Boris, it is now almost complete. We will return to "normal" politics, where serious-looking politicians, who all look the same, act like they are saints when in fact they only care about their own pockets and slowly sell out the country to China, while their neoliberal woke ideas destroy Western civilisation.

I remain pessimistic that the West is in long term decline, to the rise of China.