AT AN Edinburgh Fringe show Canadian comedian Stewart Francis joked about his chronic insomnia and how he had an appointment with a specialist in three months’ time. “Still, just two more sleeps,” he quipped.
He can’t have been watching the selection procedure for Republican candidate for the US Presidency, or the punchline might have been: “No more sleeps. Ever.”
The existence of “Trump Towers” across North American should have been a warning shot into our consciousness but most of us first became fully aware of The Donald, as he self styles, during his campaign of hectoring to bring about his golf course north of Aberdeen and subsequent purchase of Turnberry in Ayrshire.
Anthony Baxter’s film “You’ve Been Trumped” was a magnificent expose of the tactics of this bullying plutocrat, who was unwisely taken under the wing of Alex Salmond’s Scottish Government because ministers feared that rejection would make them look hostile to international business and inward investment. More fool them.
Mr Trump is not a normal business figure. For all he talks about how his mother was Mary Anne MacLeod his defining trait was being born into his father’s property business and developing a pumped-up ego built around his Alan Sugar role in the US version of The Apprentice with his signature bouffant hair, mocked by opponents nodding to the protest song as “We Shall Over-comb”.
So far, so amusing on this side of the Atlantic. But as we discovered during his Balmedie sojourn, The Donald actually cuts an unappealing figure at times, as with his relentless rants against renewable energy in Scotland.
In his run for the Republican nomination as presidential candidate he has emerged as profoundly unpleasant and misogynist.
He admits he “got lucky” in terms of avoiding the Vietnam draft but medical and student deferments played a role. This did not prevent his absurd intervention mocking party veteran John McCain, saying: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured? I like people who weren’t captured.”
As part of his defence of this comment, he actually said: “People are constantly attacking my hair. I don’t see you coming to my defence.” This response to a rival politician shot down and imprisoned, who turned down release ahead of his comrades, and who still carries injuries to this day, was too much for many.
But not Fox News, who continued their promotion of Mr Trump right up to and beyond last week’s candidates debate where he was put centre-stage among the top 10 candidates, not one of them female.
At that point he faced questioning from host Megyn Kelly about his previous sexist comments and he responded later by implying that this proved she had been menstruating.
His comment was that “she had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever”. You judge. It’s never easy to interpret The Donald. Fox then ran a sycophantic interview by arch-Conservative Sean Hannity – who holds an honorary degree from Jerry Falwell’s university – in which Mr Trump spoke of his great relationship with Fox News president Roger Ailes and said he didn’t understand what went wrong with the debate because he felt he wasn’t treated fairly.
This follow-up, apart from effectively hanging Ms Kelly out to dry, allowed Mr Trump to rewrite history in terms of previous comments about immigrants, Mr McCain and attitudes to women. The interview also allowed him to row back from his other signal failure of the debate, where he refused to rule out standing as an independent if he didn’t win the Republican nomination. It was a classic damage limitation exercise by Fox.
We are in strange territory where, not unlike the arguments about Jeremy Corbyn in this country, critics say the opposition parties would welcome a victory as an own goal. But both Mr Trump from the right and Corbyn from the left continue to surge in the polls.
The difference is that Mr Corbyn is heavily opposed by the British media which traduces him as much more extreme than he is, while in the US significant sections of the media back Mr Trump and seek to soften the more oddball edges of his “make America strong” pitch.
While The Donald cuts a ridiculous, bombastic and often pathetically whingeing figure, he is no longer to be taken lightly. The more outrageous his utterances, the more he leads the polls, and in spite of the Democrats’ confidence, you just never know with US public opinion, which might be less afraid than the rest of us about the prospect of his manicured finger on the nuclear weapons button.
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