These two driven politicians are now the problem, not the solution

Sometime between 2016 and 2018, the narrative that Israel’s prime minister was a twin of the American president rooted itself irreversibly in the media’s collective imagination. The comparison was a stretch: Bibi — a cerebral former soldier, MIT graduate, and UN diplomat — had been prime minister a full 20 years before real-estate tycoon-turned-reality star Donald Trump entered the White House.

No matter. As far as the pair’s detractors were concerned, both were — shock, horror — “populist”; the two of them apparently subordinated the state to their own personal ends; and Bibi had even adopted “fake news” as invective to delegitimize the guardians of democracy.

But as the curtain falls on 2021 with both Netanyahu and Trump in the wilderness dreaming of a comeback, the threadbare comparison is at last realizing itself. Both occupy the same place in their national politics: superstars whose personal brands now threaten the survival of their political blocs.

To understand how two such different careers produced the same endgame, note what both really have in common.

THE STRATEGY OF BUILDING A BASE utterly unlike themselves is number one. Given his own liberal inclinations and elite aspirations, Bibi is not the most obvious choice to head Israel’s working-class, right-wing-religious bloc. Yet Netanyahu’s political longevity has been possible due to the strength and cohesion of the alliance he crafted.

Trump chose a parallel course. The New York businessman rose to power representing an alliance heavy on blue-collar workers and social conservatives — both demographics notably distant from his own personal life.

INHERENT IN THOSE POLITICAL CHOICES was an anti-elite orientation. Despite the passing of almost a half-century since Menachem Begin’s “mahapach” — the 1977 Likud victory —  ended decades of Labor Party domination in Israel, the country’s right still sees itself as under attack from the left-wing elites who control the commanding heights of the press and judiciary.

There is real substance to those allegations: The media’s obsession with the Netanyahu family’s alleged corruption was exposed in the hounding that produced “Bottle-gate” — the 2015 accusation that Sara Netanyahu pocketed the proceeds of recycling from the prime minister’s residence.

That has inevitably given Bibi ammunition to cast the far more serious allegations of malfeasance in his ongoing corruption trial as a witch hunt.

Over in America, Trumpism is a bonfire of liberal pieties. The 45th president banned Muslim immigrants, declared a trade war with China, threatened to withdraw from NATO, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, and pursued the culture wars with vigor.

The Blob responded in kind, coopting the FBI into a years-long investigation of Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia that yielded embarrassingly little.

FOR BOTH BIBI AND TRUMP, these two factors — base plus elite wars — have now resulted in a third parallel, this time an ominous one for their political parties.

Six months after his enemies on the left and right finally hit on the formula to pry Netanyahu from office, the electoral math looks good for Bibi. Polls give him 35 seats, with current PM Naftali Bennett narrowly escaping electoral oblivion.

Bibi’s recent visit to Machaneh Yehudah market was a show of force, a demonstration that he remains King of the Shuk, that weathervane of right-wing sentiment. The (as-yet-unscheduled) Likud primary showdown between Bibi and his declared challenger, Yuli Edelstein, seems certain to end in a rejection of the former refusenik.

Yet none of that matters, because the same polls show that Bibi can’t break the deadlock to muster 61 Knesset seats.

In other words, as much as Bibi is a personal vote-winner, he’s an electoral loser. With him, the right wing will languish in opposition, as the governing coalition is glued together by their fear of Bibi’s return. Without him, the current Frankenstein left-right government would break apart with every chance of the right-religious bloc’s return to power.

THE SAME DYNAMIC SEEMS TRUE of Donald Trump. A year after he was ejected from office amid the controversy of his supporters’ rioting on Capitol Hill, Trump is the undisputed king of the GOP. He toys with rising Republicans who must court his approval as he sits in state in Mar-a-Lago.

Yet the only thing that matters is whether he could win at the ballot box in 2024. Trump’s allegations of game-changing electoral fraud were never substantiated even by the conservative judges he himself appointed. The plain truth is that he lost because he repelled more voters than he inspired.

That likely hasn’t changed: Independent voters may have despaired of Biden’s shambolic leadership, but that doesn’t mean that they want Trump back in office. Yet if he stepped back to play kingmaker, it’s not hard to see a Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley beating whichever unpopular left-winger the Democrats field.

That’s why, five years after the birth of the Trump-Bibi narrative, it’s high time that the pair justified the media’s derision-tinged comparison by stepping into the political afterlife together.

The electoral fates of both the American and Israeli right rest on the realization by these two driven politicians that they are now the problem, not the solution.

For Bibi and Trump, it’s time to say goodbye.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 889)