What Donald Trump supporters and Remainers have in common – Bill Carmichael

What? A group of sore losers who are so upset a democratic vote didn’t go their way that they have refused to accept the result and are seeking to overturn it! Sounds strangely familiar, doesn’t it? I think I’ve seen this film before.

OK, let me take my tongue from my cheek for a moment to make what I think is a serious point. Democracies rely on something called “losers’ consent”, which means the losers of a democratic vote accept the legitimacy of the result and, in an ideal world, come together with their political opponents to make the best of whatever decision the people have settled upon.

Indeed, it is exactly this kind of behaviour that has strengthened our democracies over many decades on both sides of the Atlantic. Republicans have handed over power to Democrats with whatever grace they can muster, and vice versa. The same is true of Labour and the Conservatives.

If that doesn’t happen, if the losing side questions the legitimacy of the vote and tries to overturn it, then the whole precious fabric of our democracy begins to unravel. That is precisely what happened in the UK from 2016 and what is happening now in the US.

It is stupid and dangerous behaviour and I am afraid some of the perpetrators will never understand how priceless our democracy is until they have damaged it beyond repair.

The truth is that Remainers and Trump supporters have far more in common than either side would be willing to admit.

Of course there are a number of notable differences. For example, the Trump insurrection is driven by desperate and dispossessed Americans from the depressed Rust Belt states, whereas the Remainer rebellion was the product of an entitled elite backed by privileged people whose only worry in life is who is going to serve their next coffee in Pret.

And Remainers never actually invaded Parliament, as Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, but that is 
largely because they didn’t need to – 
they already had control over many levers of power, including the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the judiciary, academia and huge swathes of the media.

Another key difference is that the Trump insurrection never had even a remote chance of success, whereas the Remainer coup came within a whisker of winning. It was only the determination of the British people to keep voting for parties committed to honouring the 2016 vote that eventually saved the day.

But the similarities between the movements are more striking. Both Trump supporters and Remainers shared exactly the same anti-democratic instincts – and when a vote went against them they both wanted to cancel it and pretend it never happened.

And the irrational anger of both groups is fuelled by frankly bonkers conspiracy theories that the vote was somehow “stolen” from them, which inevitably turn out to be the deluded fantasies of a small group of obsessed cranks.

It is time for these people to take a deep breath and calm down. We have already seen the blood-chilling predictions of Project Fear – economic collapse, food and medicine shortages, house price crash, planes unable to land or take off – have turned out to be nonsense on stilts.

There was a flurry of excitement on Remainer social media this week after an officious Dutch customs official confiscated a lorry driver’s ham sandwich. If that is the worst that Brexit throws at us, I think we can confidently say the UK is going to be absolutely fine.

Similarly, Joe Biden is not the antichrist and will not usher in Armageddon. He is a career centrist politician and with any luck he will start fewer wars and bomb fewer black and brown skinned people than his predecessor Barack Obama did in his eight bellicose years in power.

So my advice, for what it is worth, is exactly the same for those terrible twins – Trump supporters and Remainers. Swallow your disappointment, accept the result of a democratic vote, and work with your opponents to fight the Covid pandemic and build a better future for your children.

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