Blodgett Opinion: Lessons from Labour’s loss

In the classic 1978 movie, ‘Animal House’, a pretentious university Dean meets with some fraternity members whom he dislikes. Chiding a pledge, the sneering administrator says, being “fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.” Likewise, the December 12 drubbing of Great Britain’s Labour party inspires a similar warning to Democrats: Being an anti-gun, pro-Open Borders Leftist is no way to beat Donald Trump. The United Kingdom’s elections have proven prescient, over many decades, in the run-up to US presidential races. Labour‘s 1964 nominee, Harold Wilson, defeated the Conservative, Alex Douglas-Home, for the office of Prime Minister. The following month, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson annihilated a prominent Conservative, the Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, for the presidency. Prime Minister Wilson sought re-election in 1970, losing to Conservative Edward Heath; subsequently, in 1972, Richard Nixon slaughtered Democrat George McGovern. In 1974, Wilson ousted Heath as Prime Minister, which portended the 1976 defeat of the incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford by Democrat Jimmy Carter. British Conservative Margaret Thatcher ousted, in 1979, incumbent Labor party Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan – which presaged Ronald Reagan’s 1980 wipe-out of Carter.

Following Thatcher’s 1983 landslide re-election, President Reagan in 1984 carried 49 states, against Democrat Walter Mondale. In 2016, five months before Donald Trump vanquished Hillary Clinton, the Brits voted for Brexit. In the aftermath, the UK’s Conservative Establishment was rocked, not unlike how Trump’s brash candidacy reconfigured the GOP. The historical trend lines which commenced in October of 1964 have continued. So, will Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative party’s massive victory mean that President Trump will win, BIG, in 2020?
Most likely, yes.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, pollster Douglas Schoen, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and many other Democrats warn that an uber Leftist will lose, decisively, in 2020. British Labor party nominee Jeremy Corbyn, who presided over Labour’s humiliating defeat, scared working-class voters, pensioners, and even college students, with his radical ideas. Corbyn even proposed creating a new higher education entitlement, and other costly plans which voters correctly perceived meant higher taxes on workers and additional regulations on job creators. Labour’s operatives also waged a vitriolic verbal war on some UK industries and utilities. Does this sound familiar? Consequently, Conservatives overwhelmingly won the working-class vote. This bodes ill for America’s Democrats, who – not unlike their British Labour party counterparts – are perceived as arrogant, pro-Welfare, anti-Christian, pro-LGBT, anti-gun, pro-perp, anti-white, pro-affirmative action, anti-cop, and pro-foreigner.

Blue-collar workers view progressives as condescending, and opposed to many Western ideals, while tolerating anti-Semites within their ranks. Ironically, a flashy, Manhattan-based billionaire with his own private jet, and an old school, upper-class Etonian, are the politicians who, now, best understand and represent working-class voters in their respective nations. Johnson was derided as a simplistic racist, a bombastic Neanderthal and divisive nation-wrecker. Sound familiar? As was proven by Mr. Trump, and by Prime Ministers Johnson and Thatcher, and by Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon: Conservatives who are unfairly labeled as bigots tend to run stronger than those not accused. Republican losers like John McCain, Mitt Romney, Bob Dole, Jack Kemp and Gerald Ford were never credibly accused of being racist. Conversely, Donald Trump – not unlike Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson, and Presidents Reagan, and Nixon – is routinely (and, wrongfully) so labeled. If history is any guide, being so denigrated will enable the Trump-Pence presidential ticket to turn this to its advantage in 2020.
Britain’s workers rightfully worried Corbyn’s ideas would damage their Economy. While professors, bureaucrats, unionized teachers, social workers, environmentalists and other self-important elitists endorsed Labor, British workers – and, especially, blue-collar voters – were skeptical of Labour’s proposals. Johnson also skillfully exploited the frustrations accompanying today’s multicultural UK. Therein lies additional warnings for the Democrats, whose pro-immigration stance has alienated tens of millions of likely voters who aren’t registered Republicans in swing states, which will be up for grabs.

There were 1.6 million Muslims in England and Wales in 2001, representing only three percent of the population. By 2016, it those numbers had risen to 4.4 million (6.3 percent), and could rise, based on some recent projections, to 20 percent by 2030. Overwhelmingly, the UK’s working-class whites are about as pleased with such demographic change as are their American counterparts, with providing health care, legal services, Welfare, drivers licenses and subsidized college tuition to illegal aliens – and with the federal Judges who block Trump’s crackdowns on, and efforts to rid America of, these illicit border crossers. Democrats should fear what happened in Great Britain, and be worried that blue-collar employees now anchor the political parties of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. Failing to curtail, and then reverse, this trend can, and will, doom their 2020 prospects.

About the Writer: Todd A. Blodgett served on the White House staff of President Ronald W. Reagan, and as a member of the presidential campaign staff of Vice President George H.W. Bush. Mr. Blodgett also worked as a strategist for the Republican National Committee, and as a Confidential Informant for the FBI. He lives in Clear Lake, Iowa, and in Tyler, Texas, and can be reached via his website: http://www.ToddBlodgett.US.