Boris Johnson’s Thursday morning resignation as U.K. Prime Minister has sent shockwaves through global politics – and “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are optimistic that it could indicate the end of a political era.
“The rise of right-wing populism in the West may soon be limited to the confines of cable news hosts and a dwindling number of dimwitted representatives in Congress,” Brzezinski said, prefacing the program’s deep-dive on Johnson. Then, drawing a through line between Johnson, France’s presidential election (which saw the loss of Marine Le Pen), and a growing unease around former U.S. president Donald Trump on the home front, Scarborough echoed that “it looks like the age of the right-wing populist with Johnson’s departure may be coming to a short, short end.”
“It’s interesting: We keep hearing and we’ve heard about the rise of the authoritarians and Western democracy on the skids; we’ve heard about the rise of the right-wing populist and [how] it’s going to overtake Western democracy. But we saw it with Boris Johnson, we saw it with Brexit, we saw it with Donald Trump: There is without a doubt a growing sense of exhaustion,” Scarborough said.
He continued: “Boris Johnson getting the boot from his own party suggests that it’s not just happening here because we’re starting to hear more and more about it with Donald Trump; it’s not just happening in France, where the French people said yeah we don’t like Macron, but man we’re not voting for the crazy woman. And we’re seeing it really across Great Britain and across a lot of Europe. It looks like the age of the right-wing populist with Johnson’s departure may be coming to a short, short end.”
Scarborough then took aim at another trait that links the U.K. and U.S.’s respective “liars in chief,” targeting their appearance: “It was a false spring – but wow, a spring with some very, very bad hair,” he quipped. “There’s just something about these right-wing populists – I mean, good lord.”
“Morning Joe” panelist Willie Geist also jumped in, saying that we haven’t yet seen the same accountability held for Trump that we’re now seeing for Johnson, but that there is reason to be heartened by the U.K.’s conservative party’s shifting loyalty.
“His own party is showing that there is accountability, that there are standards of ethics and character. And it feels like here in the United States we don’t see that, obviously, among Republicans with Donald Trump. But a party that’s willing to say to someone that they thought was the vessel for the things that they wanted – to get Brexit done, as he promised during his campaign – they’re saying: ‘No, actually, there’s a line you can’t cross. We’re going to resign and run you out of office,’” Geist reflected. “That doesn’t happen here. Maybe that will change.”
Watch a portion of the “Morning Joe” segment in the clip above.
