Nigel
Farage: from Brexit hero to Trump’s little helper. That’s some
career path
Marina Hyde
Some
say Britain doesn’t make or export things any more. But we did
supply Donald Trump with a straight man
Friday 26 August
2016 15.49 BST
What a thrill to see
new life breathed into the buddy demagogue movie in Jackson,
Mississippi, on Wednesday night. You only had to look at Nigel
Farage’s little face to see how thrilled he was at the chance to
play the Danny Glover to Donald Trump’s Mel Gibson. As for Trump,
he was all over Nigel’s cheap suit like a cheap suit.
I still find it
impossible to imagine Trump touching anyone except his daughter
without pulling the full Mariah Carey and screaming for the hand
sanitiser the second he’s offstage. But Mr
Soon-They-Will-Be-Calling-Me-Mr-Brexit made an excellent fist of
embracing Mr Brexit for his crowds of occasionally bemused
supporters. A fanfare for the little people ensued.
I’m sure Farage’s
life wants him back and everything, but duty calls.
This week found the
outgoing Ukip leader shaving off his gap year moustache and going all
the way to that America. He was joined by his backer, Arron Banks –
still growing into the role of kingmaker, it must be said – though
the pair left their immigrant wives at home, so we were denied the
spectacle of a bilateral with Melania. (Incidentally, why do so many
of our most frothingly anti-immigrant elite populists seem to have
immigrant wives? I find all my non-scientific answers to be entirely
unprintable. Perhaps an academic study could put it mildly.)
Initially, alas,
Farage’s visit was not without its indignities. Barely hours out
from the event, Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said she
would “highly doubt” reports that such a joint appearance would
happen, adding dismissively that the two men “don’t know each
other”.
But it all ended in
a populist form of triumph, when the day after their appearance in
Jackson, Hillary Clinton devoted a passage in her speech denouncing
the rise of the alt-right to Farage. “Just yesterday,” she
warned, “one of Britain’s most prominent rightwing leaders, a man
named Nigel Farage, who stoked anti-immigrant sentiments to win the
referendum, to have Britain leave the European Union, campaigned with
Donald Trump in Mississippi.”
‘Wouldn’t vote
for Hillary if you paid me’: Nigel Farage at Trump rally
If this cast Farage
as some distance to the right of Trump, it wasn’t the only carnival
mirror moment of the week. “You’ve got to have some weight to get
someone like that to come out here,” judged one member of Trump’s
audience of the candidate’s success in pulling off the Farage
booking. “It shows Trump is a heavyweight.” Blimey. I hadn’t
realised quite how damaged America’s self-esteem was.
That a significant
section of people feel left behind by mainstream politics is clear
from the rise of populist movements on both sides of the Atlantic.
That Trump can make their lives better seems considerably less likely
even than Farage being able to do the same. The only way these two
men can show their supporters how much they care about them is to
display how much they despise almost everyone else. Yet the
suspension of disbelief holds, and shows no sign of breaking in the
short- or even medium-term future.
A highly indifferent
former City trader cosies up to the bizarre confection of megalomania
that is Trump, yet the sense of rebellion against elites among their
supporters is real. It may seem odd, considering he resembles a
picture too hideous even for the attic, but Trump frequently reminds
me of a line in The Picture of Dorian Gray: “You are the type of
what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found.”
These two men show
their supporters how much they care about them by displaying how much
they despise everyone else
There is no need for
a word cloud after a Farage event these days, because his shtick can
be reduced down to about four phrases that would sound patronising in
any less looking-glass a world. “Little people”. “Ordinary
people”. “Decent people”. “Real people”. Farage thinks
America’s infinitely superior polling is as out of whack as the
UK’s, so you can see why Trump likes him so much right now. But on
the off chance that the Donald isn’t triumphantly landing his
private jet on Pennsylvania Avenue on 9 November, I’d like to see
Trump launch a range of colognes to go with his established lines,
Success by Trump, and Empire by Trump. Why not market Little People
by Trump, Real People by Trump, Ordinary People by Trump, and Decent
People by Trump?
After all, Trump is
incapable of having an experience without wondering primarily how it
might be monetised. Persistent rumours suggest he is eyeing the
establishment of a rightwing news network, post-election, which would
allow him to maximise the opportunity of the audience he has
acquired.
Perhaps Farage
envisages a role for himself on this putative network. It would be
something to fill the time and keep him in a version of the limelight
before his inevitable return to lead Ukip – or whatever successor
to the party Banks is planning – in time for the 2020 election. As
Farage was saying with hilarious specificity by the end of his own
resignation speech: “Let’s see. Let’s see where we are in two
and a half years’ time.”
Any Farage show on
the Trump network wouldn’t be within four hours of prime time,
obviously. I see him in the Alan Partridge graveyard slot – 3am
till 6am – taking calls from deranged insomniac survivalists and
consoling himself with the thought that there are far higher callings
than spending time with one’s family.
Then again, perhaps
he prefers the smaller pond. Farage’s failure to go as far as
endorsing Trump suggests he has more than one eye on how it might
play back where it really matters to him, while his reaction to
Hillary’s speech could scarcely have been more UK-centric, leading
with: “She sounds rather like Bob Geldof and can’t accept
Brexit.” If that line was designed to land anywhere in the States,
then Farage probably wants to buy in some new writers.
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