Before anyone accuses
me of making a false or unfair comparison, the purpose of this post
is not to say that these two are the same. In many ways, they
couldn't be more different. Trump spent the majority of his 'career' generally being an unpleasant person to work
with. Corbyn, on the other hand, has always been a man of the people.
He's built a reputation for being in the trenches with the “masses”
and fighting for their causes. My aim is to address some remarkable
similarities in their approach and how it helped their results.
The first similarity is
the connection with the general public. While Corbyn had always been
in touch, Trump made the astute move of tapping into long held
frustrations and providing a voice for those frustrations on a bigger
platform than they usually got. In America, it was immigration, jobs
and 'Islamic extremism'. In the UK, it was austerity and wealth
inequality. Both politicians took the brave move of addressing these
issues at every opportunity, even when it seemed like the emphasis
was grating on everyone else.
This persistence with
the message earned an unyielding loyalty from the masses which was
unshakeable in the face of what can only be described as spectacular
gaffes. In Corbyn's case, he and his allies repeatedly got their
numbers wrong ahead of the elections but that did not stop the
quite remarkable
success of his campaign. Diane Abbott, one of Corbyn's strongest
allies and also one of the repeat offenders in the campaigning
process went on to record the biggest ever majority in her constituency. Trump, on the other, said a series of racist, sexist
and generally derogatory things on the on the campaign trail (and
beforehand) but that did not stop him from winning.
The two also made a big
deal out of campaigning and getting supporters fired up. You may
disagree with some of their policies and their general approach but
one thing you cannot deny is that their supporters had more fire in
their belly than supporters of their opposition. The justifications
for this 'fire in the belly' are, of course, up for discussion but
what both politicians did was to tap into that fire and ride the
wave. Their rallies were packed to the rafters and even though I
wasn't there personally, you could feel the passion from the other
side of the television. Their opponents, on the other hand, seemed to
be conducting robotic events that attendees were not too keen on.
Corbyn and Trump also
used the supposed attacks from the media as a tool to galvanise
supporters. Both were parodied (and continue to be parodied) from
pillar to post but instead of dampening the spirit, it has spurred
supporters on to greater commitment to the cause. On the morning of
the UK elections, the UK's best selling newspaper, The Sun ran a
front page saying “Don't chuck Britain in the Cor-bin” with a
picture of Jeremy Corbyn's head sticking out of a dust bin. At the
end of the day, Corbyn's Labour Party had increased its number of
seats by 34 (I guess he had the last laugh there).
There is also the
anti-establishment card, the fact that they were both up against opponents that were in their position by some kind of default and a range of other issues that show interesting
similarities between Corbyn and Trump but I think you get my point. These two were given next to no chance and both defied the odds
to record astonishing successes. By taking politics back to its
fundamentals and speaking up for “the people”, they managed to
deliver successes that even many of their supporters did not see
coming.
Some of the work is really appreciating about trump such as his power of negotiation. I found that from trump news
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