This one has been making the rounds on social media, and which merits reposting on AWAV. Someone on the popular question-and-answer website Quora asked, “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” A witty and insightful writer from England named Nate White wrote the response below, which is as spot-on a description of Trump-the-man as one will find:
A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
- Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
- You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
‘My God… what… have… I… created?
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.’
Brilliant.
On a somewhat sobering note, Peter Beinart’s latest, typically insightful piece in The Atlantic is entitled, “The two psychological tricks Trump is using to get away with everything: His brazen attempts to redefine the norms of acceptable conduct work for a reason.”
IMHO Trump will not get away with this, i.e. what he will be impeached for. His luck will run out. Inshallah.
Oh those Brits have a way with words! Perhaps more important in the Beinart piece is the difference in support for impeachment between Republicans that view Fox and those that don’t.
People who get their information from Fox – and specifically its evening and early morning shows – also listen to Rush Limbaugh and other AM radio shock jocks, and follow Breitbart, Newsmax, and other such sites, not to mention the American réacosphère on Twitter. With this closed media “ecosystem” and general Republican hatred of the Democrats and “the left,” Trump is insured of a floor below which his approval rating will not fall (we’ll eventually find out what that is; probably somewhere in the mid 30s, i.e. higher than Bush’s at its lowest point).
“IMHO Trump will not get away with this, i.e. what he will be impeached for. His luck will run out. Inshallah.”
IMHO you simply forget that history is tragic.
The tragedy was Trump’s election. But history is contingent and can offer surprises. And sometimes the good guys (or gals) win and the bad guys get their just desserts.
I don’t think he can win, because despite his very strong support: he’s shedding independents and he’s motivated college-educated suburban women who traditionnally voted for Republicans against him. BUT it will be close. Evangelicals love his “support for the rights of the unborn” and his “very good judge choices”, captains of industry like the tax cuts and the lifting of regulations, some Republicans simply can’t vote for a Democrat, and he’s got his base. All of that will likely add up to 35-40% without his having to campaign. Can he get more?
He will 1° play dirty (cf. the playbook planned for Biden) 2° encourage a third-party candidate 3° purge the voting rolls 4° use Fox (and OANN).
So, the Democrats’ candidate better be prepared, nimble, focused, and willing to fight back.