‘The coldest Winter I can remember was Summer in England’, according to Mark Twain.
My sunless sojourn to Blighty has come to an end and this morning I am nestling into my seat on Virgin Atlantic flight VS 1019 headed back west.
When I arrived on these blustery shores at the end of March, things didn’t look too rosy for the centre-left on either side of the pond. There was a chill wind blowing through both nations.
In the UK, while the Conservative Government was pretty much universally declared ‘unfit for purpose’, populists and extremists who feed off such chaos were mobilising to fill the void. In the US, storm clouds were gathering for the incumbent Democrats too.
It felt as if this Summer, my preferred democratic Atlantic alliance may freeze over.
There was, after all, precedent.
In 2016, when the UK chose to sever their links with the EU and vote ‘Brexit’, the US responded by choosing Donald Trump to be their Commander in Chief. Was history about to repeat itself?
Despite a worrying surge in fringe and independent voting in May’s UK local elections, by July, when it came to voting for a government to lead the entire nation, the British electorate had thawed and heavily backed the centre-Left Labour Party led by Kier Starmer.
What will America do? Are more temperate times ahead?
Much has changed since I last set foot on American soil.
Back in April, I was invited by Downtown in Business to join one of their podcasts on the political and economic landscape in America. I declared my belief that Trump was destined to be the 47th President come November’s election. This was no wild conjecture or a controversial attempt to boost the ratings algorithm, it was the consensus opinion.
Since then, like America’s weather, the political climate has warmed significantly for the Democrats.
They have ditched their candidate and selected a new one who, so far, has started to claw back the political momentum. The economy has shown signs of recovery with an interest rate cut expected next month, and the early surge in popularity for Trump has waned.
Once capable of filling a stadium, Trump is now speaking to smaller audiences in second tier halls and venues. Even there he is seeing banks of empty seats as people leave early as he rambles through 90-minute speeches which have analysts and observers speculating about his cognitive state and whether signs of early onset dementia are showing.
And while Trump’s campaign has lost much of its power, since Biden stepped back the Democrats have seen most polls turn their 3-point deficit into a 3-point lead – still within the margin of error, of course.
And even sunnier days may lie ahead for their electoral hopes.
If the expected reduction in interest rate occurs, mortgage rates drop slightly, credit card default steadies and consumers feel more confident going shopping again, then the Democrats should benefit from a further warm glow.
But Trump isn’t going to go away quietly. I expect his campaign to ditch their current strategy of talking about the economy and the hot political issues – not because they aren’t important, but because their candidate simply doesn’t want to do that.
He is more comfortable trading insults, name calling, and using his private social media platform to spread half truths and outright lies about his opponents. The strategy isn’t without merit – chuck enough mud and some of it sticks, it worked when he trashed Hillary Clinton’s reputation in 2016.
But even Trump supporters are cooling on the former President.
His subtle racist dog whistles, weird attacks on Jews while professing his support for Israel, his continuing unpopularity with women voters and, perhaps most significantly, the major backfire of recent stunts and attack lines aimed at winning military and veteran support, have all sent a chill through Republican strategists.
Having spent the past few months in Britain where Trump enjoys almost zero support or any positive news coverage – even the Daily Mail and its readers aren’t fans – it is easy to convince yourself he could never possibly be successful.
But I know when I step off the plane later today and walk through the airport terminal Fox News will be blaring on the TV monitors. I know that the echo chambers which both parties feed and repeat endlessly will be in full effect, and I will switch on my mobile devices and be inundated with negative campaign ads, short video format, AI generated content and heavily edited footage.
Very quickly it will become apparent that the race is going to be a lot closer than I have perhaps lulled myself into believing while enjoying my days dodging rain clouds on Britain’s beaches.
Over the coming weeks, the campaign will likely see a few more defining moments. Trump will hope he can repeat the formula from September 2016 when he gradually overturned a 7-point lead for Hillary as the Democrat campaign cooled.
There are debates to be had, major rallies to be thrown, hundreds of millions of dollars in campaigning, largely negative, to be spent – one thing is for sure, it is going to get a lot hotter than it ever did in Britain this Summer.
