THREAD: A few days after @jk_rowling & others dug out Daniel Hannan’s spectacularly, comically, offensively inaccurate predictions about Britain & the EU after Brexit.. it’s also worth reminding ourselves of his smug predictions after Trump’s victory.. 1/ conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/…
2/
First of all, to give him (limited) credit, Hannan didn’t praise Trump. Of course not: Hannan’s ludicrously deluded shtick is that Brexit had nothing to do with nativism & anti-globalisation. For him, leaving the EU is about returning to the Garden of Eden...
3/
..Hannan wants to restore an imaginary Golden Age where peace-loving Britain straddled the world, its admiring & diverse nations opening up their markets not because of gunboats or colonial ruthlessness but because EVERYBODY LOVES FREE TRADE!!! Returning to his Trump article-
4/
...sustaining his delusion about Brexit requires Hannan to believe that Trump, with his petulant racist & protectionist outbursts, is the polar opposite of Brexit (and not the American manifestation of the same phenomenon)...
5/...so that’s how our friend Daniel Hannan starts his laughable article: “The parallels between Brexit and Trumpery have been absurdly overdone.” Yes, of course they have. The two phenomena are utterly distinct & completely unrelated. (/s). Actually...
6/
...Hannan’s article begins with his trademark smug, gratuitous, self-congratulatory digs against Remainers & with this buffoonish prediction: “All I’ll say is this: if Trump can defy the pundits in the United States, then so can, say, Marine Le Pen in France.” Anyway...
7/
Anyway, back to Hannan’s main deluded argument: “both [Trump & Brexit] drew on a certain anger against political elites but Britain’s Leave campaign was not nativist or protectionist.”😂😂 Then it gets better as he offers up a slew of self-owning predictions about Trump...
8/
“What will the Trump Presidency mean for Britain? One obvious difference between the 44th president & the 45th is that, whereas Obama threatened to put Britain at the back of a queue for a trade deal, Trump says we’ll be at the front. This is encouraging” 😂😂😂 There’s more👇
9/
“Behind all his rhetoric about Mexicans and Muslims, Trump offered surprisingly conventional conservative economic policies, based around lowering, flattening and simplifying taxes. America would certainly benefit from his anti-corporatism.” Wait, it gets better😂👇
10/ “Then again – this point can’t be stressed too strongly – Congress leads on budgetary questions. The Republicans are firmly in control of both chambers, and Paul Ryan, the Speaker, has a serious plan to revive the economy, a plan that he is now in a position to implement.” 😂
11/
“The US President doesn’t have the powers of the President of Ukraine or Uganda.😵He’s constrained by the legislative & judicial arms of govt. Although House/Senate under Republican control, plenty of Republican legislators make no secret of their dislike of the Donald.”😂
12/
“There is, as it were, an anti-Trump Congressional majority.😂😂
He evidently grasps this. 😂😂His victory speech was conciliatory😂😂, not only toward Hillary, whom he thanked effusively for her service😂😂, but also toward Republican leaders😂😂.” Oh Dan, so many bad takes!
13/
“He warmly name-checked Paul Ryan, & passed the microphone to only one other person: Reince Priebus, who chairs the Republican National Committee. He is, in other words, reaching out to his new party.”😂😂 stop it, Daniel - you realise this is going to come back to haunt you?
14/
“Most Republicans have reciprocated. Fewer Democrats have. Trump’s newfound moderation has been answered by a torrent of abuse.” Yeah, Daniel- looking back, that’s definitely where Trump’s Presidency started to go wrong: it’s the Dems’ fault. (/s) #DanielHannan #BadTake
15/
“The New Yorker told readers that this was how fascism began. In this regard, at least, there is a parallel with the Brexit vote: the vitriol poured out by people who, lacking self-awareness, thought of themselves as fair-minded liberals, served only to boost the other side.”
16/
“This really shouldn’t need saying, but analogies with fascism are idiotic. The United States has just carried out a free election, in which power was smoothly transferred without anyone being exiled or shot.”
#DanielHannan #BadTake #BrexitMeansTrump 👇
17/
Hannan continues with his customary know-nothing blind optimism: “President Trump will be constrained in office, not least by the possibility of impeachment if he goes too far. His Vice-President, Mike Pence, is a good and humble man, in politics for all the right reasons.”👇
18/
Foreign policy is the one area where Hannan is less sure that the sound instincts of the Republican Party & the resilience of the US’s democratic institutions will keep President-elect Trump in check. He does see some potential dangers. But don’t worry...!👇
19/
..Global Britain will ride to the rescue & use its influence to keep Trump in check!😩 “Britain, a country which Donald Trump says he loves, may have a more important task than ever in working with the United States on the world stage.” What is Hannan’s overall conclusion?👇
20/20
Concluding, Hannan repeats his trick of pretending to go forward in time & tells us Trump is going to turn out just fine: “nothing in politics is as good or as bad as it first seems. America is the world’s greatest republic. That will be just as true four years from now.”
Two bonus tweets: (1/2) we should never forget Hannan’s pivotal role in Brexit as the man who since the 1990s campaigned for this relentlessly & gave a patina of intellectual respectability to the cause of taking Britain out of the EU but...
...(2/2) for those of us who want some form of revenge, Hannan’s pompous articles full of ridiculous, self-owning predictions are the proverbial “gift that keeps on giving”. //
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