WITH disgraced former US president Donald Trump recently winning the Iowa and New Hampshire caucuses, the feeling is growing that, despite the 91 criminal indictments against him, it’s almost inevitable he will be the Republican candidate in this November’s presidential election.
 
In the states, the usual suspects are already queueing to kiss Trump’s ring — the likes of Senator Tim Scott and repellent failed candidate for the Republican nomination toadying pharma millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy.
 
Three quislings
 
So far, so unexpected, but in Britain we have been treated to the odious spectacle of three senior Tories already fawning over the prospect of a second Trump term, namely the “quisling three” of fallen prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, together with cosplaying Victorian head boy Jacob Rees-Mogg.
 
Rishi Sunak has so far maintained a Lord Halifax-style neutrality, but given his famed lack of spine, expect some honeyed words thrown Trump’s way if he becomes the official Republican nominee for president.
 
What have the three fellow travellers said so far? Johnson, nauseating as ever, proclaimed in the Daily Mail, “There is every chance, under Trump, that the West will be stronger, and the world more stable, what the world needs now is a US leader whose willingness to use force and sheer unpredictability is a major deterrent to the enemies of the West.”

The oafish ex-PM declared that he liked Trump’s supposed “style,” and denied the credibly-accused-of-rape candidate’s ambitions towards dictatorship, adding for good measure that, “In the cocktail parties of Davos, I am told, the global wokerati have been trembling so violently that you could hear the ice tinkling in their negronis.”
 
Johnson recently offered his services in the event of war with Russia, although considering his well-documented inability to use an umbrella, propensity to seek shelter in fridges to dodge the press and yellow-livered avoidance of censure/inconvenient votes in Parliament, such services are probably of limited value at best.
 
As for lettuce-brained Truss, the 49-day wonder of British politics, her take on the return of The Donald was, “The world would benefit from more of that kind of US leadership today, I hope that a Republican will be returned to the White House in 2024. There must be conservative leadership in the US that is once again bold enough to call out hostile regimes as evil and a threat.”
 
Previously the impressively eloquent Truss had said that Trump was, “very good” and “very nice,” while he stated in response: “I think very highly of Liz Truss.”
 
Rees-Mogg chimed in recently with his twopennorth, telling ITV, “I would rather have Donald Trump than President Biden.

“I think Donald Trump is better disposed towards the United Kingdom, I think President Biden has shown his dislike for the United Kingdom throughout his presidency and that’s been very unfortunate and unhelpful to whatever you make of the special relationship.”
 
In the event Trump and (as is likely) Keir Starmer win, will the new New Labour also bend the knee — perhaps following Tony Blair’s chief of staff Jonathan Powell’s foul-mouthed injunction to Christopher Meyer, British ambassador to the US, “Get up the arse of the White House and stay there.”
 
Maybe Blair, in an act of poetic justice, can be assigned the task of inserting himself up Trump’s backside.
 
Assume the position
 
In the event of a Trump victory, closer British ties to the EU would seem entirely logical, but whether Starmer will risk Brexiteer anger is another matter.

Perhaps the remaining pro(ish) European Tories may (unlikely though it is) discover their backbones and finally leave the party to stand against Trump with Starmer, the SNP, and Lib-Dems. It’s either that or time to make like detested Vichy PM Pierre Laval and show him our metaphorical bellies as a sign of obeisance.
 
If in some nightmare scenario Sunak is elected, one can only imagine the cringing, flattering, and grovelling that our pocket-sized Prime Minister will feel compelled to indulge Trump with, aware of the cohort of would-be Trumpian Degrelles, Musserts, and Clausens sharpening their stilettos at any lack of deference on his part.
 
Let’s hope the aged Biden or a credible last-minute replacement for the November election wins, or it looks like we’ll be (to coin a phrase), “royally f****d.”
 
The second US civil war?
 
And if Trump returns to the White House, what are the chances of a second civil war in the US?
 
I’m surprised democracy-supporting civilian leaders, government officials and senior army officers aren’t already making plans to resist a second Trump presidency, if incarnated this time as a full-blown dictatorship.
 
If they’re not, maybe they should be — as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher memorably said: “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”
 
A warning from history exists in the tragic impotence of the German widerstand (resistance) group led by former mayor of Leipzig Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (1884-1945) who left it far too late to take action against Hitler’s Nazi regime.

Inherit the wind
 
At his age, Trump’s regime (if he is installed and is unopposed) is likely to be fairly short; his colossal vanity and fear of mortality will very probably preclude him from nominating a successor. Any VP choice will be so weak as not to be a credible alternative or heir to whatever’s left of the US after Trump finishes with it.
 
So, after the hellscape of his unbound rule, prepare for a war of the Trumpian Diadochi, where his leading goons vie against each other, factions led by the likes of unhinged general Michael Flynn, slow-witted would-be Jefe Don Jr, sleazy Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, performatively cruel Texas governor Gregg Abbott, South Dakota’s Falangist Kristi Noem, and the unkempt propagandist Steve Bannon.