How's this for the start of an article in
yesterday's New York Times? 'Donald
Trump is completely unfit to be president of the United States. That is not an
ideological expression. That is an expression of the shock of mounting evidence
that he is intellectually deficient, temperamentally unsound and morally
bankrupt.'
The writer was the New York Times columnist Charles Blow, who, as if we needed
reminding, went on to detail the US president's serial missteps of just the past
few days.
On Monday, he chose to repeat one of his favourite
racist slurs -- calling the Democratic party senator Elizabeth Warren 'Pocahontas'
because she has claimed native American ancestry -- while, get this, supposedly
honouring Navajo veterans of World War Two.
On Tuesday, he was reported to have resurrected --
admittedly behind closed doors -- his old lie about Barack Obama not having
been born in the US.
And then on Wednesday came his now notorious
tweets (all right, which of his tweets are not notorious?) endorsing three
videos promulgated by the British racist organisation Britain First, which was
originally set up by former members of the BNP.
Here's how Charles Blow describes the true
significance of all this: 'These are not mistakes. These are not coincidences.
This is not mere bungling. These are revelations of the soul. This is who Trump
is and who he has always been. This is who he was before he entered politics,
and who he remains.
'The Trump Doctrine is White Supremacy. Yes, he is
also diplomatically inept, overwhelmed by avarice, thoroughly corrupt and a
pathological liar, but it is to white supremacy and to hostility for everyone
not white that he always returns.'
And if you're still in any doubt at all about what
this all means, I call in evidence Nigel Farage. (Now, there's a sentence I
never expected to write.) This is what he said: 'I do think these videos are
very bad taste and he [Trump] showed poor judgement. Of that I have no doubt at
all.'
So now the US president has gone too far even for
Nigel Farage, the man who so happily posed for pictures with him immediately
after he was elected and who Trump thought would make an excellent UK
ambassador in Washington. Truly, another line has been crossed.
This probably comes as no news to you, but surely
there can now be no doubt whatsoever: Donald Trump is a racist and a bigot, who
lashes out at minorities and whips up racial hatred whenever the mood takes him.
(By the way, if you want the background to the
videos that so took Mr Trump's fancy, you should read this.)
It was too much even for Theresa May, who through
gritted teeth was forced to acknowledge that Trump was 'wrong' to lend his
support to what her Cabinet colleague Sajid Javid, the son of a Pakistani bus
driver, rightly called 'a vile, hate-filled racist organisation'. (All credit
to him, by the way, for going where Mrs May feared to tread.)
The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who famously
called on EU leaders to end their 'whinge-o-rama' after Trump was elected a
year ago, called Britain First 'hateful' and said their views were 'not in line
with our values'. (Really, Boris? I would never have guessed.) But his
statement, shamefully, made no mention of Mr Trump's support for the
organisation.
Why don't we just ignore Trump's ravings? Why give
him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply offensive his views are to so many
people? The answer, in my view, is that to ignore him is implictly to accept
that what he says is no longer worthy of condemnation, that it has somehow
become the 'new normal'.
It hasn't, and it mustn't.
As for cancelling Mr Trump's invitation to come to
the UK on a State visit, I say let him come -- and let him see, if he has the
stomach for it, the depths of the revulsion so many Brits feel for his views.
After all, if we could survive State visits by President Nicolae Ceaușescu of
Romania (1978), Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (1994) and no fewer than four kings
of Saudi Arabia and three Presidents of China since Queen Elizabeth was crowned
64 years ago, I dare say we'll survive Mr Trump.
2 comments:
Robin, you say " let him come -- and let him see, if he has the stomach for it, the depths of the revulsion so many Brits feel for his views." Yup - sounds good.
But would our government and Trump's supporters ensure, as with Xi Jinping when he came from China a couple of years ago, that he would be ensured a similar reception, where imported flags and banners were handed out by the Chinese embassy to thousands of "supporters" who lined the road, most of them studying at universities in the UK, while those demonstrating against him were fenced off by our police? How many US citizens are in the UK these days? And how many support Trump?
Probably the even-bigger insult to those Najavo veterans was that the ceremony took place in front of a portrait of Jackson, who signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830
And, I think it would make a bigger worldwide impact if Trump was denied the State visit. We're British, not the 51st state, FFS
Post a Comment