Hello Mr President
Like it or not Donald Trump is going to be sworn in as President of the United States of America tomorrow
The writer is editorial consultant at The Express Tribune, news junkie, bibliophile, cat lover and occasional cyclist
Like it or not Donald Trump is going to be sworn in as President of the United States of America tomorrow, Friday 20th January 2017. He comes into office with the lowest approval rating of any president since Adam was a lad. Some of the scandals that dog him before he has sworn the oath are too lurid even for these liberal pages. They make the Clinton-Lewinsky business look no more than a chaste peck on the cheek. Half of the American population detest and revile him. The other half for the most part thinks he is the best thing since sliced bread. Stars of stage and screen have walked away in droves from his inauguration. World leaders outside the American bubble are still having their realities adjusted whilst lying down in a darkened room with a cold compress on their foreheads. Meanwhile, here in Bahawalpur, there is concern over the rising price of eggs.
But let’s hold our horses for a moment shall we? Here in Castle Cork the ascent of The Donald is viewed with no less horror than it is in other left-leaning or centrist households. Personally the man appalls me. His sexism and racism. His slovenly crudeness. His shallowness. The endless Tweets. The lack of grace under pressure. All of it. The whole nine yards. And there is still, despite all this, a corner of me that says…’Well now, this could be interesting.’
Iconoclasts — revolutionaries if you will — get mixed reviews historically. Oliver Cromwell took a hammer to the churches. They needed it. Chopped off the head of Charlie One. No bad thing either and a shame the tradition was not continued. But when push came to shove the Brits decided that they would rather have a king on the throne but without a lot of the attached kingy-ness, and they would put up with the churches fleecing them right, left and centre. So Ollie and the medieval version of the Taliban — the Puritans — duly got the boot. They went on to found America. Must be a lesson in there somewhere.
What followed was a modified status quo — and perhaps that is what the Trump presidency has in store for us. A whizz-bang out of the starting blocks cracking of heads all around, assorted paradigms having a pleat put in them. Shock and outrage follow all over the place, those bloody Europeans get a comeuppance snooty buggers that they are and long needed a kick in the posterior and those Germans! Well! And how about the Chinese huh? Anybody else building custom-made islands in the middle of the ocean the better to extend their territoriality? Nopes. Putin could do with a smack aside the head as well notwithstanding the phony bromance that served its electoral purpose and will get buried once the parade has gone by. Obamacare? Pshaw! Let them eat cake! Nato? Gimme a break…
All of this and more is promised including a wall that the Mexicans may or may not but probably won’t in the long run — be paying for. And Oliver Trump may have some early successes — or at least successes as he and his crony cabinet of fellow billionaires see them. The rifts in the great European experiment in togetherness may be widened. They had been evident for years and the Brexit vote set a lot in motion, rampant nationalism and the rise of the far right among them, to say nothing of galloping Islamophobia and let’s not even begin to think about where on the spectrum of darkness Trump places Islam.
The gulf between the USA and the rest of the world may widen as well as the alt-right tightens its grip on the throat of all that is faintly pink never mind socialist red politically — but hist… half of America did not vote for this. The half that are not flocks of turkeys eagerly awaiting Yuletide. The half that still have their heads on the right way up in a couple of years time may have dusted themselves off, got their collective act together, rolled up a few sleeves and said ‘Right… enough of this nonsense’ and decapitate Ollie the Trump sticking his head on a spike just to make the err… point. I wish. Tootle-pip!
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2017.
But let’s hold our horses for a moment shall we? Here in Castle Cork the ascent of The Donald is viewed with no less horror than it is in other left-leaning or centrist households. Personally the man appalls me. His sexism and racism. His slovenly crudeness. His shallowness. The endless Tweets. The lack of grace under pressure. All of it. The whole nine yards. And there is still, despite all this, a corner of me that says…’Well now, this could be interesting.’
Iconoclasts — revolutionaries if you will — get mixed reviews historically. Oliver Cromwell took a hammer to the churches. They needed it. Chopped off the head of Charlie One. No bad thing either and a shame the tradition was not continued. But when push came to shove the Brits decided that they would rather have a king on the throne but without a lot of the attached kingy-ness, and they would put up with the churches fleecing them right, left and centre. So Ollie and the medieval version of the Taliban — the Puritans — duly got the boot. They went on to found America. Must be a lesson in there somewhere.
What followed was a modified status quo — and perhaps that is what the Trump presidency has in store for us. A whizz-bang out of the starting blocks cracking of heads all around, assorted paradigms having a pleat put in them. Shock and outrage follow all over the place, those bloody Europeans get a comeuppance snooty buggers that they are and long needed a kick in the posterior and those Germans! Well! And how about the Chinese huh? Anybody else building custom-made islands in the middle of the ocean the better to extend their territoriality? Nopes. Putin could do with a smack aside the head as well notwithstanding the phony bromance that served its electoral purpose and will get buried once the parade has gone by. Obamacare? Pshaw! Let them eat cake! Nato? Gimme a break…
All of this and more is promised including a wall that the Mexicans may or may not but probably won’t in the long run — be paying for. And Oliver Trump may have some early successes — or at least successes as he and his crony cabinet of fellow billionaires see them. The rifts in the great European experiment in togetherness may be widened. They had been evident for years and the Brexit vote set a lot in motion, rampant nationalism and the rise of the far right among them, to say nothing of galloping Islamophobia and let’s not even begin to think about where on the spectrum of darkness Trump places Islam.
The gulf between the USA and the rest of the world may widen as well as the alt-right tightens its grip on the throat of all that is faintly pink never mind socialist red politically — but hist… half of America did not vote for this. The half that are not flocks of turkeys eagerly awaiting Yuletide. The half that still have their heads on the right way up in a couple of years time may have dusted themselves off, got their collective act together, rolled up a few sleeves and said ‘Right… enough of this nonsense’ and decapitate Ollie the Trump sticking his head on a spike just to make the err… point. I wish. Tootle-pip!
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2017.