The ‘Stronger Together’ slogan which finds itself at the heart of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the White House first caught my attention a few days ago.

Despite having pointed out repeatedly on the run up to the Brexit vote, I scarcely thought the Democrats would not learn the lessons of the failed ‘Stronger In’ campaign to keep Britain in the European Union. But over the course of the last few days it has become apparent that Hillary plans to fight an ‘Establishment 101’ campaign against Donald Trump.

Why? Perhaps they don’t know any other way. But here’s what really struck me about the Democrat Convention, Hillary’s platform, and the similarities to the Brexit campaign.

STRONGER TOGETHER

Of course, as mentioned, the slogan is strikingly similar to the ‘Stronger In’ campaign during the Brexit referendum in Britain. And the Democrats and Hillary are repeating that Mr. Donald Trump is trying to strike fear into people. Meanwhile, ‘Stronger Together’ is a fear-based campaign slogan itself. It implies by design that America is ‘Weaker Apart’, as a direct antonym. What these implied words mean however is never defined – why would it be?

The thing about a good campaign slogan is it represents all of these things – and that’s what ‘Stronger Together’ really means. It means:

These are almost exactly the same things we were told to accept during the Brexit vote, except swap out Hillary for European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, and states’ rights for nation-statehood.

PROJECT FEAR

This was the name of the campaign run by the establishment: scaring people into voting for the status quo. Or so they tried, meanwhile playing the “xenophobia” and “hate” cards against the opposition. They even tried to capitalise upon the murder of a Member of Parliament to further their aims.

And ‘Project Fear’ is exactly what the Democrats are embarking upon. The fear in this case is the fear of the unknown. Meanwhile they tell you Mr. Trump is all sorts of “phobe” – Islamo, homo – you name it.

The thing about phobias, though, is that they represent an irrational fear. That cannot be said for a fear of radical Islam, or even a religious belief against same-sex marriage. These are perfectly rational positions to take, whether you agree with them or not is a totally different thing.

But instead of these, we’re told we should be afraid of Donald Trump answering “that call” at 3am. Why? Because it is untested, or unknown. That’s a real phobia. Which makes the Democrats Trumpophobes, or by the dictionary definition: xenophobes.

During Brexit, Britons expressed natural scepticism over mass migration, the supremacy of EU courts over ours, and the erosion of British identity. Given the evidence of how all these things have negatively impacted Britain, these were not unnatural phobias. They were rational fears. But Brexiteers were regularly called xenophobes and haters by the ‘Stronger In’ campaign. It just so happened that enough people got tired of being lectured about how they were terrible human beings by a bunch of terrible human beings in Westminster (our ‘Beltway’).

The fact that Hillary Clinton boomed, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” during her nomination acceptance speech only serves as further evidence, to me, that the Democrats are attempting a Gramscian blurring of the lines between rational and irrational fear. Switch up the language and you switch up the debate.

 

‘THE RIGHT IS SOOOOO ANACHRONISTIC’

This hit me when listening to Gov Andrew Cuomo’s speech on Thursday evening. It’s the same, “they want to go backwards, we want to go forwards” narrative we saw just a few months ago. He said: “Republicans say they want to make America great again, to take us back to the good old days. What good old days do they want to take us back to? Before the Civil Rights Act? Before minimum wage and worker protection laws?”

During the Brexit campaign the ‘Stronger In’ spokesman alleged that Brexiteers wanted to take the country “back to the…” 1950s, 1930s, or insert random other point in history as applicable, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn warned of a “bonfire of rights”, calling into question human rights, equality, and even workers’ rights in Britain if we left the European super state.

The problem the Remain campaign faced is firstly: no one bought the idea that Britain would return to cramped workhouses and slavery if we left the European Union. But also, people have quite good memories, and very good perceptions of a pre-EU Britain.

As pollster Andrew Cooper noted in the Guardian after the referendum:

The attitude that most characterised [a significant number of Brexit voters] was “I hardly recognise the country I live in any more”. More than half of them agreed with the statement “If I could wave a magic wand and take the UK back to the 1950s, I would”. Their imperative was to shut out the consequences of globalisation and open markets. These voters were overwhelmingly going to vote leave, regardless of the arguments.

‘NO BLACKS/IRISH/MEXICANS’ ETC ETC

As per the Brexit campaign, minorities were rolled out during the Democrat Convention to hyperbolise over their “experiences” of racism. Usually these “experiences” aren’t theirs at all, but a super convenient story that Grandma told them when they were 3-years-old and they memorised it exactly in order to recall it, to the word, some 45-years later in front of a political convention. Take Joaquin Castro’s remarks on Thursday:

In 1922, my grandmother came to Texas from Mexico. She wasn’t a rapist or a murderer. She was a six-year-old orphan. As a girl, she walked past storefront signs that read “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed.”

The famous “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish” is the British equivalent. Despite there being only one photograph on one window of one establishment ever to have been pictured with this sign, it has become synonymous with how “racist” the whole of Britain was just a few decades ago.

An article in the Daily Star quoted “community activist” (sound familiar?) Desmond Jaddoo as being fearful of a return to the days of that one sign.

This isn’t to deny that the Notting Hill riots, and other such racist incidents ever happened – but the former involved around 400 people. This is fewer than the number of activists affiliated with the modern National Front (UK) or Al Muhajiroun have, and we scarcely see policymakers ranting on about them.

In short: the establishment selectively trumps up the fears it wants to stoke in order to keep its agenda in gear. Big surprise? Maybe not. But it is surprising to me that their playbook is so thin.

THE WEAKEST LEAD SPOKESMAN

Hillary Clinton’s speech on Thursday night was a snoozefest. Sorry, but it was. I’m not even being churlish. I wish I was. I prefer it. It was dull, dull, dull. And to prove against those that might say, “You would say that wouldn’t you?” I did in fact compliment Khizr Khan’s speech earlier in the night.

But Mrs. Clinton’s speech isn’t just dull because she’s an establishment robot (though there is that). It is also because the establishment campaigns really believe that their lead person should be the straight man of the piece. The dour, dry, and rarely impassioned spokesman of a wider movement.

Let everyone else, like nutty Jen Granholm, do the heavy-lifting on charisma. Keep the “principal” free of controversy by keeping them as boring as possible.

This is especially important when it comes to Hillary Clinton given that she has so many skeletons in her closet, and is prone to angry outbursts.

And the Brexit campaign tried this too with the appointment of the insult to dishwater that is Lord Stuart Rose, who was benched in favour of then Prime Minister David Cameron after a series of gaffes.

It is simply too risky for Hillary to give a memorable speech. It’s one hour after she spoke and I’ve already forgotten what she said. That’s a good thing as far as the Democrats are concerned.

Over the course of the next four months we’ll see a lot more in parallels between Brexit and the U.S. elections. I’ll be posting them here on Breitbart London, on my Twitter account, and on my Facebook page. Make sure you’re paying attention.

P.S. Hillary has Katie Perry while ‘Remain’ campaigners had her erstwhile lover and political bad luck charm Russell Brand.