The Unsavoury USA of Trump 

Generally nobody reads my long posts but I’ve still got to write it, because it occurs to me that we, or at least I, owe Trump a huge debt of gratitude, and it is only polite that I express my thanks. He has helped open my eyes to the USA in a way I had not, heretofore. My mother was born and raised in the States and I have always been a supporter, celebrated the 4th July, given a nod to Thanksgiving and generally turned a bit of a blind eye to the blemishes. I still attend, in the virtual world, The First Unitarian Church of Dallas for my structured spiritual inspiration and drink often at the virtual wells of the Guggenheim, Smithsonian and so forth. As I’ve grown older I have, of course, become increasingly concerned by the idiocy of the gun culture and the power of the rich; however then we had the wonderful, fairly reassuring terms of President Obama’s presidency, but then there’s now and … Judas, where to begin? To start with, I have had to face up to the fact that there are sufficient people in the US (62,979,879, for God’s sake – and I don’t care if Mrs Clinton got more votes) who are so far from being what I would consider sane human beings that they put this lying, self-obsessed, narcissistic oaf into the White House. Now, I know I shouldn’t rush to judgement but, come on, 62 million. That’s a frighteningly large number of people to suddenly find out scare the crap out of me in a country I’ve always been fond of! Anyway, I do understand in some ways their desperate disenchantment and grasping at straws, but not their continued support of the lying toad. Then there are the people who call themselves ‘Christians’ and even leaders of faith communities who voted for him. For the record 81% of white evangelicals did. 81%! (Also, it’s interesting that a majority of all other faiths – Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs etc. voted for Mrs Clinton.) And these ‘Christians’ still believe he’s okay. Now, far be it for me to be a moral arbiter for Christians but even logic alone shows this grasping, sexist, racist bully is too far beyond the pale, relative to the tenets of their faith … but no, apparently not. And then we have the Republican party. So, if I was American, which thank God I’m not, I wouldn’t vote GOP, but these people have shown themselves to be such ghastly, self-serving, grovelling, unprincipled serpents that I’m astonished they don’t drown in their own bile, venom and festering puke! And of course there are the tens of millions of weird people who vote for them … over and over again. Is this a genetic problem, or what? Don’t get me wrong, I have delightful US friends and family, and there are many millions of fine folk in the US; I just hadn’t understood until turdy Trump what ghastly secrets they were having to hold close to their patriotic and loyal bosoms; that it is a dangerous and violent lunatic asylum they live in, poor souls. I did not realise how many tens of millions of bigoted, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, gun-toting, white-supremacist, xenophobes they have all around them. They are much braver than I. If I had to live in – forgive my plagiarism – the shithole, I’d do so in a fortress, stay indoors, armed to the teeth, and apply for refugee status in El Salvador, Haiti or one of the various African nations he mentioned, strong advertising to live there, indeed. So, yes indeedy, thanks Trump, you ghastly animated turd, thanks for the wake-up call to view the real America. There is little I can usefully do with my miserable awakening to a reality that so appals, other than pray he doesn’t press the button – his ‘bigger button’. Judas what a sad tosser! - but I can have one personal mission to take from this. I shall start petitioning the French government to demand the return of the Statue of Liberty. It is a tragic irony beyond any decency, and a cruel and unreasonable punishment, to leave her standing where she is. Bring her home; bring her back here to France, back to the land of the free.