The Boris two-way: How to make your mind up like Bo-Jo

The Boris two-way and implications for Trump

OK, spoiler alert – the title ‘The Boris two-way and implications for Trump’ was taken from a recent BBC online article , but I thought it was such a great opening that I just had to re-use it.

Just to recap, for those of you not familiar with the ‘Boris two-way‘, ahead of this year’s EU referendum Boris Johnson wrote two articles for the Daily Telegraph, one arguing in favour of ‘Remain’, the other for ‘Leave’ (note: the ‘Remain’ article was drafted in February and probably never meant for publication, but was recently leaked to the Sunday Times in Oct-16).

I must admit, as somebody who is fond (some might say overly fond) of writing things down to help me make tricky decisions, I admire Boris’ methodology….although I wouldn’t necessarily draft my thoughts as a newspaper article and send it out to a load of my ‘friends’!

Boris’ ‘Remain’ arguments:

• EU is “a market on our doorstep, ready for further exploitation by British fees”
• “The membership fee seems rather small for all that access. Why are we so determined to turn our back on it?”
• Leaving the EU could lead to economic shock, Scottish independence, and Russian aggression

Boris has been accused of duplicity, but he said he was just ‘wrestling’ with his conscience and only after having written the two contrasting articles, did he become overwhelmingly convinced of the ‘Leave’ argument.

I set them side by side and it was blindingly obvious what the right thing to do was….

Why Trump will win and why he will lose

As the American presidential election is fast approaching (campaigning seems to have gone on for years….actually, it has!), let’s see what the ‘Trump two-way’ looks like….

Arguments for ‘Win’

• There is a comparatively small swing vote – both candidates have a seemingly unshiftable 40% core support, despite Trump’s non-payment of federal taxes, sex abuse allegations and foreign policy which would have sunk most other candidates without a trace
• A number of people who haven’t previously voted are expected to turn out, and pollsters are notoriously bad at predicting their intentions (think BREXIT), especially those who don’t want to publicly proclaim their intentions; e.g. in Europe, Far Right parties have always done better in practise than predicted by pollsters
• Trump’s supporters are the most fervent, whereas Clinton’s are the most conservative, and America appears to be yearning for a change from the old political guard

Arguments for ‘Lose’

• All Clinton has to do now is to ‘do no wrong’ – the election is hers to lose, and with all her legal training and her well-resourced campaign team, any 11th hour revelations or public break-down appears unlikely
• On the back of the sex abuse allegations, Michelle Obama’s criticism has stuck where others have not, given her profile as a speaker for women’s rights.
• Clinton has the full backing of her party, whereas Trump is seemingly at odds with all of his party

The written conclusion

Having written it all down then à la Boris, it does appear that Trump is a busted flush (to coin an Americanism), having cried ‘Wolf’ so many times that he has now lost his shock value.

The only way it appears that Turmp is going to win at this stage is if huge swathes of Clinton supporters become disillusioned/apathetic and suddenly fail to turn out to vote….which given that this seems to include almost all the women voters in the US would seem rather unlikely.

Like I said, the written word suggests that it’s now Clinton’s election to lose, not Trump’s to win….now, let’s see how it turns out on Nov 8th.