Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Meet the real deplorables – and no, it’s not Farage and his champagne populists

Washington, D.C.

Nigel Farage’s 2016 celebration of Nigel Farage’s 2016 is a party that might never stop. And it is a jolly affair. Yesterday, at the Hay-Adams Hotel, in Washington, DC, Nigel and his pals — let’s call them the champagne populists — had a US election bash. Nigel stood up to do his usual routine about how this year would be remembered in a hundred years as the glorious moment when nation state democracy reasserted itself, and everybody cheered. 

The champagne populists raised lots of glasses to themselves and talked about how they got Donald J Trump elected to the White House. Meanwhile, the American voters who actually elected Donald J Trump to the White House had had to stand in ridiculously long security queues to witness their moment of history at a concert at the Lincoln Memorial. 

I met some real deplorables yesterday — not at the Farage party, of course; they never would have been allowed in. But on the Mall waiting for the police to let them in to the inauguration festivities. They were standing around a stall selling wacky Trump merchandise and reminiscing about the excitement of the election. Two west-coast boys told me about how they were nearly beaten up by some ‘gangbangers’ in Anaheim for wearing Trump hats. ‘We’re on YouTube,’ one told me, laughing. ‘It was great. The police came … there was helicopters and gas and shit.’ The stall had ‘Les Deplorables’ badges for sale. ‘Kind of a French Revolution thing going on there,’ said the seller. ‘It’s what’s happening here.’

Les deplorables were enjoying themselves. They wanted to talk about immigration and money.

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