So today, the Republican Party wheeled out their defeated 2012 candidate Mitt Romney to denounce Donald Trump. This was the latest in a series of events that are eerily similar to events that took place last summer during the Labour leadership party contest. Romney appeared at an event organised by the Hinckley Institute which seems to me quite similar to the Progress event at which Tony Blair recommended supporters of Jeremy Corbyn should get a ‘heart transplant’.
There are other similarities too. People said Corbyn didn’t really want the job. They said the same about Trump. Those within and outside the Labour Party tried to damn Corbyn with guilt by association. They’ve just tried the exact same thing with Trump. In a desperate last ditch effort to derail Corbyn, third placed candidate Yvette Cooper tried to attack Corbyn. In a desperate last ditch effort to derail Trump, third placed candidate Marco Rubio tried to attack Trump.
Corbyn attracted hundreds of thousands of new supporters to the Labour Party. In America, turnouts in the Republican Primaries have been breaking records.
Obviously there are huge differences between the two men. Trump was already a celebrity in an even more celebrity-obsessed culture than ours and a billionaire to boot, while Corbyn was virtually unknown until last June. On policy, you could say Trump is the anti-Corbyn (or vice versa).
Tony Blair’s attack on Corbyn didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Some think it actually bolstered support for Corbyn. I wonder how effective Mitt Romney’s attack will have?
alittleecon 
brilliant, Alex
Alex, I think the only connection is that established politicians and party’s can’t cope with outsiders running in the same race. With regards to Trump he is vile person with nothing but hate, prejudice and ego so it’s difficult not to get personal. Jeremy on the other hand is a good human being. If both reach otherwise apathetic electorate, it says more about that electorate than party tactics.
@Geof – doesn’t it say more about the deficiencies of the main parties rather than the electorate. Successive governments in many Western countries are completely alienated from the voters – even their core voters.
But I’d hesitate to take the analogy too far. Trump, to a large extent, is the culmination of existing and long-standing Republican policy and, for all of his arguments with Fox News, embodies a lot of the Angry Old White Man agenda that Fox and the Republicans have been pushing for decades. It’s just that they have lost control of the monster.
That doesn’t stop idiots using the Trump/Corbyn analogy to grind a well-worn theme.