July 5, 2024 - 10:00pm
It’s impossible to imagine an American version of Nigel Farage in virtually any sense but one. Like the Tories, centrist Republicans are increasingly vulnerable to defeat at the hands populist insurgents who outflank them from the Right.
What might that mean? Consider this observation from Tom McTague in UnHerd after Wednesday’s election results. “The reality this morning is that few people now doubt [Farage] when he warns that the result is ‘just the first step of something which is going to stun all of you’. As recently as 2017, Marine Le Pen’s National Front had just two MPs. Today, she stands on the brink of power, the Gaullist Republicans little more than a shell.” As of now, the Republican Party belongs to Donald Trump — but the comparative success of Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s campaign suggests that voters may be hungry for their own Farage-style figure.
Polling shows some 40% of voters for Kennedy, a lifelong Democrat currently sitting at 10% in the RealClearPolitics national average, identify as Republicans. That could only be the beginning. He’s scored donations from wealthy Republicans and appears frequently on alternative media platforms popular with conservatives.
After covering the campaign closely, McTague came to a conclusion with eerie parallels for the American Right. “Over the past six weeks, I have travelled across the country speaking to ministers, candidates, party insiders and the campaign generals on both sides to understand what was happening and why, peering deep inside the bellies of both party machines,” he wrote. “During this time, I saw a contrast of startling intensity: between one party ruthlessly committed to victory and another which had long ago lost the discipline necessary to govern and therefore even to command the respect of the country.”
The realignment that swept disaffected Rust Belt Obama-voters into Trump’s movement leaves Republicans with a predicament. Many argue that despite his style and rhetoric, Trump’s policy positions aren’t all that radical. Why, for instance, does he want to hand out green cards to foreign students? Or fund the war in Ukraine? That’s not to mention unconditionally cutting the taxes of corporations who are increasingly enemies of the Republican base and watering down the party’s traditional stance on abortion.
For Right-of-centre voters seeking an alternative, Kennedy is ideologically unpredictable. On Covid and the pharmaceutical industry, however, he’s exploited Trump’s weaknesses with a certain group of disillusioned sceptics. His critique of foreign policy and censorship is deep and detailed. In the hands of a charismatic outsider with a more conservative background, aspects of RFK Jr.’s platform could be powerful, especially when the dust is settled on Trump’s legal battles.
What’s clear from the Tory bloodbath is that centrist risk aversion illustrated by the likes of Rishi Sunak gradually breeds resentment and creates untenable political math. While it’s often an expression of decadent elitism, the strategy also happens to be a self-defeating anyway. As John Curtice explained for the BBC on Friday, “All in all this looks more like an election the Conservatives lost than one Labour won.”
Many Republicans are already looking for new options, as RFK Jr.’s modest gains show. Those become especially dangerous for the GOP when considering the trajectory of European politics. The parallels here aren’t perfect, but already the lesson of RFK Jr.’s campaign shows why a charismatic American Farage — or an army of them — could do big damage to Republicans on the top of future tickets and all the way down — if they botch the moment by returning to their centrist ways.
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SubscribeI’m afraid it doesn’t take a psephological genius to work that one out, although one can perhaps understand “the BBC” needing to have it explained to them.
It looks like Curtice has taken a job as the spokesperson for the Ministry of the Bleeding Obvious.
“the Republican Party belongs to Donald Trump — but the comparative success of Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s campaign suggests that voters may be hungry for their own Farage-style figure”
I’m sorry, but what?
Farage is to Trump as Cliff Richard was to Elvis.
Good comparison. But don’t forget how many records Cliff sold in the UK!
Point being, I suppose, that Trump’s not young. Sooner or later he’ll be gone. Where does the GOP go from there?
Neither party is taking the clamor for change seriously yet. Eventually one or both might get wise with a candidate like RFK Jr. or Farage.
I would change that to “….a candidate like RFK Jr (but obviously not a complete nut-job like RFK Jr)”.
I don’t know about that! Trump is a deeply unpleasant man, but you’d have a beer with Farage!
Farage and Trump emanate from societies with very different political systems and indeed emotional motivation (abortion not even an issue in the UK), despite people across the political spectrum.treating them as one.
Apart from that, Farage is still a pretty fit and spritely guy in his early 60s, Trump is an old man whose faculties are also wanting, though nothing like as much as Biden’s. Trump worship is in my view narrow minded and potentially damaging for American conservatives -and obviously just to mention this word is to highlight that Trump has never been one!
Farage is who Trump should have been like, but didn’t have character or talent, or interested to be so. That would have required too much work, too much responsibility, and too much risk to do so, which are things he did not want. JFK Jr is just a glorified crank who gained traction, such as it is, due to unpopularity both other candidates and general disaffection with the sate of things, a fading family political brand that lost most of its luster, and various fringe segments of electorate who views to some degree align with his own fringe beliefs, and see him as something to use to push their own pet obsessions and don’t really care about him personally. Repeat after me, JFK Jr is not going to be President.
Too much not to.
I think that to the extent that RFK Jr has a superpower, it is to make Trump look sane by comparison.
I agree with much of your comment, but Farage is definitely not going to become Prime Minister either, so that one isn’t to his favour over RFK junior.
The Republicans can have our one if they like! Better still, can we clone him! We can give one to every country in the UN!
Trump is right on abortion. Politically, anti abortion is a declining and losing position in US society. It might well save the Democrats.