Hello, and happy Friday!
It has been a week in trans-Atlantic politics. For those who wisely retreated under the nearest rock, a brief recap: Last Friday, the U.S. Justice Department unveiled a federal indictment charging former President Donald Trump with 37 counts related to his removal of classified documents from the White House after leaving office. That same day, across the Atlantic, Boris Johnson announced he would be stepping down as a member of Parliament with immediate effect after having been found to have misled his fellow lawmakers about lockdown-breaking parties, a serious offense that could have put him at risk of facing his constituents in a by-election (“could” being the operative word, as this thread helpfully lays out).
Both leaders responded as you might expect. Trump dismissed the indictment as yet another witch hunt against him. Johnson, appearing to take a page out of the Trump playbook, complained of being “forced out anti-democratically” by a “kangaroo court.”
This is the politics of grievance in action. In both scenarios, we have leaders who, having run up against the guardrails of democratic institutions, throw a political temper tantrum in which they assert that they who are the victims of anti-democratic actions, not the perpetrators. In doing so, they not only seek to galvanize support among their respective bases, but to undermine trust in the institutions that are curbing their power.
While this tactic may prove effective for Trump, who has a demonstrable base of support within the Republican Party, it’s less clear how useful it will prove for Johnson, who is considerably unpopular after having resigned in disgrace last year. Then again, this is a man who has been sacked from previous jobs for lying, only to emerge stronger. Could the Minister of Chaos surprise us once more? Rumor has it CNN is looking for a new CEO… (I’m kidding. Well, sort of.)
A programming note: This correspondence will be taking a brief hiatus while I travel stateside later this month. See you in July!
What I’ve written
I interviewed British-French author Ben Judah about his new book, This Is Europe: The Way We Live Now, a collection of vivid portraits that capture Europe at its margins, on its frontlines, and within its ever-changing landscapes. We discussed the storytellers at the center of the book, the evolution of travel writing, and how the Europe of our imaginations doesn’t necessarily match up with the Europe of today.
There’s a Europe of the mind made up of stained-glass windows and the smell of coffee and summer holidays, and I think that the Europe of the mind is growing increasingly distant from the Europe that we actually live in. I think the role of writers is to help people see and to help people feel. I wanted to help people see the real Europe. I think we live in a time and in a space and in a technological system that is pushing us all away from each other and into a situation where we know less and less and less about people who are outside of our own direct network. Keep reading here
Longtime Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon was arrested over the weekend amid an ongoing police probe into the Scottish National Party’s finances. For those who haven’t been keeping up, I wrote about what the probe is about and the impact it stands to have on the SNP’s electoral prospects. Read all about it here
Plus:
A Q&A with Keir Starmer on his plans to end 13 years of Conservative rule (adapted from my recent profile of the Labour leader)
How to know when Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive has begun (spoiler: it has)
What I’ve read
This thoughtful political obituary for Boris Johnson (Unherd)
Johnson’s great skill was to be able to harness the populist revolt without losing his old “middle-of-the-road men” of England who the Conservative Party had long relied on. In this he was helped enormously by the figure of Jeremy Corbyn and the failures of parliament to enact the result of the referendum. Yet this trick looks impossible for him to pull off again. Johnson without humour is a different beast altogether; Johnson without humour and populism is even more so. We sank giggling into the sea; I’m not sure you can do so twice.
This column on why U.S. culture wars don’t resonate in Britain (The Financial Times)
Their first mistake was a failure to appreciate quite how radical the US Republican party has become on social issues, and how comparatively moderate Britain’s Conservatives are. From immigration and racial discrimination to whether to defend tradition or embrace change, UK Conservatives actually come out closer to US Democrats than Republicans.
This mega profile of CNN’s now-former boss Chris Licht and how his mission to restore the network’s reputation went badly wrong (The Atlantic)
Licht’s theory of CNN—what had gone wrong, how to fix it, and why doing so could lift the entire industry—made a lot of sense. The execution of that theory? Another story. Every move he made, big programming decisions and small tactical maneuvers alike, seemed to backfire. By most metrics, the network under Licht’s leadership had reached its historic nadir. In my conversations with nearly 100 employees at CNN, it was clear that Licht needed a win—a big win—to keep the place from falling apart. The Trump town hall was supposed to be that win. It had to be that win. And yet, once again, the execution had failed.
What I’m thinking about
This week, I attended a roundtable discussion with America’s best-known public-opinion guru, the pollster and strategist Frank Luntz. While much of the conversation was off the record, the following anecdote about Luntz’s first encounter with Donald Trump was not.
Luntz: What does the J in Donald J. Trump stand for?
Trump: Genius.
Until next time,
Yasmeen