On Tuesday, Boris Johnson, former British Foreign Secretary and leader of the Conservative Party, secured the votes in Parliament to become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
It is an outcome that was long considered likely — and it creates parallels with the 2016 election of President Donald Trump in the United States, as there are a great many similarities between the politics and styles of these two men, notes NPR.
First, and most obviously, both men are brusque right-wing populists who have made controlling immigration their core issue on the political stage — in Trump's case it is building the wall, while in Johnson's case it is implementing Brexit.
Both men also have similar personal controversies. They both have faced outrage for racist and sexist remarks — Trump has questioned President Obama's birth certificate, called Mexicans "rapists" and Nazi demonstrators "very fine people," told congresswomen of color to "go back" to other countries, and boasted that he can get away with sexually assaulting women. Johnson, meanwhile, has called black people "piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles" and referred to gay men as "bumboys."
Trump and Johnson are also both broadly described by people who know them as lazy and unintelligent. And the opening of their tenures were marked with failure — already, Europe is shooting down his proposal for Brexit and there is no indication he has any idea how to get a clean resolution.
It is little wonder, then, that Trump himself has openly hoped for Johnson to become Prime Minister — and that he predicts they will get along nicely.
