Comparisons, 2024

(Updat­ed from 2013.) Mr. Don­ald Trump’s elec­tion vic­to­ry has had the inevitable result. Just like Churchill, go the com­par­isons, he made an amaz­ing come­back from write-off to recov­ery. And like Churchill, he switched par­ties twice! (Did he? I don’t know. I’m not a stu­dent of Mr. Trump’s polit­i­cal pilgrimage.)

Mr. Nigel Farage MP has made such com­par­isons. Notwith­stand­ing what I think (or you think) of Mr. Trump, I think Nigel is all wet. Not Tory Wet, but Reform Wet. (Is this a new category?)

First, Par­lia­men­tary com­par­isons with the Amer­i­can fed­er­al sys­tem are non-sequitur. Churchill’s come­back was from reject­ed Cas­san­dra in 1935 to First Lord of the Admi­ral­ty (1939), then Prime Min­is­ter (1940); but all that time he was in the rul­ing par­ty. So he kind of evolved into pow­er. Cyn­ics of the time said that he grad­u­al­ly sank to the top. Rab But­ler quipped: “The good clean tra­di­tion of Eng­lish pol­i­tics, that of Pitt as opposed to Fox, has been sold to the great­est adven­tur­er of mod­ern polit­i­cal his­to­ry.” That sounds familiar.

Com­par­isons can log­i­cal­ly be made to Grover Cleve­land—the only pre­vi­ous U.S. Pres­i­dent to return to office after being thrown out. But com­par­isons to Churchill in 1940 are off.

So are com­par­isons to WSC return­ing as PM in 1951 after being dis­missed in 1945. His Wood­ford con­stituen­cy re-elect­ed him by large majori­ties in every elec­tion from 1945 to 1959. He returned as PM because he was the leader of his par­ty when it won a major­i­ty of seats in the House of Commons.

Comparisons, 2013

Churchill com­par­isons start­ed eleven years ago with Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and the use of chem­i­cal weapons by Syr­ia. Sen­a­tors Ted Cruz (R., Tex.), and Rand Paul (R., Ky.), and Rep. Alan Grayson (D., Fla.) com­plained. Oba­ma, they said, “lit­er­al­ly offered no pol­i­cy and no ideas about how to stop the slaugh­ter of inno­cent peo­ple with chem­i­cal weapons.”

A defend­er of the Pres­i­dent said he “made the hard call and pro­posed the strong action that would take a real stand and make a real dif­fer­ence.” Just like Churchill in the 1930s, “when the Span­ish fas­cists, with sup­port from Hitler and Mus­soli­ni. began their attacks against the Repub­li­can gov­ern­ment of Spain.”

No. For the record, Churchill took no sides and pro­posed no inter­ven­tion in the Span­ish Civ­il War. He lament­ed the bomb­ing of Guer­ni­ca, which killed about as many as chem­i­cal weapons in Syr­ia. But he pro­posed “no ideas to stop the slaugh­ter.” That was chiefly because his unwa­ver­ing focus was on the main dan­ger, Nazi Germany.

Stop it now

Real­ly, these Churchill com­par­isons need to stop. We can­not pos­tu­late what Churchill would do today. Or even if he could be elect­ed. It doesn’t seem far-fetched to sug­gest that in today’s Mid­dle East his focus would be on the main dan­ger. Fig­ure out what that is, and you may find com­par­isons to Churchill. But, in a larg­er sense, there is nobody so far in this cen­tu­ry who is com­pa­ra­ble. Nobody.

Related articles

“Some Thoughts on Churchill’s Lon­don Stat­ue,” 2024.

“Myths of Dear Ben­i­to: Churchill’s Alleged Mus­soli­ni Com­plex,” 2024.

“Churchill’s Hitler Essays: He Knew the Führer From the Start,” 2024.

“It’s Baaack! The Churchill Bust Furore, Round 3,” 2021.

“May We Pro­claim Trump No Churchill With­out Slur­ring the Lat­ter?” 2020.