 There appears to be a curious symmetry connecting both the blocking of Brexit, and the continued attempts to bring down a free and fair American election. The same or different types of "deep state" involved on either side of the Atlantic is debatable, but the repeated attempts at a coup d'état against both the American President and the British Prime Minister have a lot in common. (Image source: iStock) |
There appears to be a curious symmetry connecting both the blocking of Brexit, and the continued attempts to bring down a free and fair American election. The same or different types of "deep state" involved on either side of the Atlantic is debatable, but the repeated attempts at a coup d'état against both the American President and the British Prime Minister have a lot in common, not least the desire to thwart the openly expressed wishes of the US and British electorates.
2016 was the year of the unexpected outcome -- twice. Against all the odds -- and against the wishes of the biased mainstream media -- Britain voted to leave the European Union, and in the United States, Donald J. Trump became the 45th president of the United States. Both events took the "establishment" by surprise, if not horror. Both events have been the subject of continuous attempts to overturn those results by any means possible, no matter how odious or even undemocratic.
The similarities are legion: These attempted coups were the first time that the results of a legitimate American presidential election and a British democratic referendum have been the subjected to concerted bids to upend them. In both instances, an establishment instigated attempted coups d'état, neither of which would look out of place in a third world dictatorship.
The good news is that it is wholly unlikely that either of the "two coups" will succeed. The increasingly transparent nature of the opposition's underhanded tricks to reverse the outcome, will in fact, be their undoing. Perhaps the general public -- American or British -- are not actually as stupid as their establishments apparently wish they were -- or contemptuously assume that they are.
Each time another obstacle is placed in their way, whether a hysterical charge of "Russian collusion" or -- the Democrats have not even yet defined their charge; they are probably still looking for one -- "Ukrainian pressure" against Trump, or the desperate attempt to charge Boris Johnson with dishonesty in his suspending Parliament, the public grow ever more wary of dubious nature of the seditious machinations in progress. They can see for themselves what is happening. When the establishment does not get its way and contravenes the will of the people, is the only outcome pandemonium? Who needs a democracy like that?
"Why is this [Brexit] important for us Americans?' Donald Trump Jr has asked.
"Because Brexit is an example of how the establishment elites try to subvert the will of the people when they're given the chance. When my father beat the Washington establishment in a historic outcome in 2016, just a few months after the Brexit vote, we mistakenly presumed there would be a peaceful and respectful transition of power from the Democrats to the Republicans, just as there has always been in this country."
So too did citizens of the UK presume there would be a peaceful, respectful – and timely exit from clutches of the untransparent and unaccountable European Union.
Unfortunately, the presumption was an optimistic one. "Instead", Trump Jr continues, "the Democrats and deep-state operatives in our justice system have been colluding to subvert the will of the American people, with high-level officials even discussing a scheme to try to remove him from office using the 25th Amendment of our constitution."
The description of the "scheme to remove [Trump] from office" eerily mirrors the political manoeuvring that has taken place since the original Brexit vote, three years ago. Since then, with two Prime Ministers down -- and counting -- with one attempt after another being made to "subvert the will of the people," the excuses for the "delay" are becoming increasingly irrational. Looking at the allegations that the Brexit campaign "deceived the public" into voting "leave," to the latest coup attempt in claiming the Prime Minister "lied" to the Queen about his motives for suspending Parliament, one cannot help asking oneself what kind of spurious trick will they will try next.
The US President and the British Prime Minister, meanwhile, remain unbowed in their determination to deliver to the public what they voted for.
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid has insisted that the government has a plan to bypass any "Remainer" legislation thrown at Number 10. "It is still possible to honour [the PM's] 'do or die' vow to secure Brexit by October 31". If he is correct, the PM will not be forced to do as the opposition propose -- to "beg" the EU for an extension to the deadline, if no deal is reached by October 19.
President Trump, meanwhile, embroiled in the latest sequel, "Son of Witch Hunt", remains defiant in the face of the Democrats' weasely posturing, including a totally false "parody" of Trump's phone call, and insists he did "nothing wrong" -- as the non-verbatim transcript of the phone call between the US President and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attests:
The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible. [Page 3; emphasis added.]
The only reference to former Vice President Joseph Biden or his son occurs later in the call:
The President: The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me. [Page 4; emphasis added]
That's it.
This text was followed a few days later by the release of a text from the US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, stating:
"Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo's [sic] of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign."
The president was requesting that Zelensky cooperate with the US Attorney General in investigating possible crime and corruption from 2016. It is the president's job as the Chief Executive to investigate such matters, as well as required by the Treaty with Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, signed September 30, 1999. No outcome was recommended.
Furthermore, if one is going to unseat a democratically elected president based on the word "though", does such an ambiguity actually rise to the Constitutional level required of "Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" -- and what sort of precedent would adopting it set? [Emphasis added]
There are now apparently claims in the US by "multiple whistleblowers"; yet here is the text of the phone call. As Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the late "Blind Sheikh," recently observed, "Remember your elementary math, though: Zero is still zero even when multiplied....."
Testimony this week from US envoy to the Ukraine, Amb. Kurt Volker, has further corroborated these findings.
Moreover, in the US, there have been calls for impeaching the president virtually since he took office. Representative Jerrold Nadler was overheard on a train planning an impeachment already in November 2018. US Attorney General William Barr is approaching Australia and Italy to ask about their help to former US President Barack Obama in his campaign against then-candidate Trump, and the Ukraine and the UK will soon likely be under investigation. Basically, claims that President Trump "violated the constitution" and acted "improperly" during a call with the Ukrainian president are clearly fabricated. In fact, it looks as if this entire US escapade was initiated to prevent the real crimes that were committed before Trump was elected from becoming exposed. As Stephen Miller noted, "Trump is the real whistleblower" -- against a possibly criminal "Deep State," which the president has been referring to as "The Swamp."
Information is expected to come out shortly, possibly exposing the real crimes that may have been committed by the possibly terrified State leadership of the previous administration. There are also allegations that the entire attempted coup to unseat President Trump is actually an effort to head off the exposure of widespread criminality in the previous administration. If anything in President Trump's phone call was untoward, what, then, does it say -- as just one tiny example -- about the boast by former Vice President Joe Biden that he threatened to withhold a billion dollar loan-guarantee unless a Ukrainian prosecutor, investigating alleged corruption in a firm, Burisma, paying Biden's son $83,000 a month, unless the prosecutor was fired within six hours? The prosecutor was duly dispatched.
The opponents of both Brexit and the US president are treading on thin ice -- apparently indifferent to the anger and division they are causing, or are even encouraging.
Like spoilt children who do not get the present they want, it seems they would rather throw a tantrum and see if any of the dirt they throw might stick than protect the institutions they so sanctimoniously claim to uphold. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Democrats to "focus on the Constitution," when in fact she called for impeaching the president before she could even have known what was in the phone call, the report of which was only released later. This is the same Nancy Pelosi, incidentally, who said about former President Barack Obama's 2,700-page proposed healthcare bill, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has reminded the House of Representatives that while the US Constitution does not explicitly require a vote by the entire House to begin an impeachment enquiry, neither does it support one "by a unilateral decree of the Speaker." The Democrat-controlled House has so far tabled McCarthy's resolution -- twice. And in the traditionally "wrong" Congressional committee -- Intelligence rather than Judiciary -- to boot.
Meanwhile, the citizens of both the UK and USA, who are wading apprehensively into their third year of obfuscation and obstruction, must still be staring baffled at the underhanded tactics of the Left, who seek to deny them their rightful claim to victory. Like villagers under siege, these two trampled sets of citizens have learned to toughen up and rely on their inner resolve to see this through. The public sorely need their faith restored: that their rights as voters, along with fair play, will ultimately win out.
Andrew Ash is based in the United Kingdom.
Spencer Offord