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Trump the Chump

A reader wonders why I haven’t written anything about Donald Trump.

Actually, I did write something.  Admittedly it was some weeks ago, when I speculated on Trump getting into the White House (relocated to Las Vegas) and Jeremy Corbyn occupying Downing Street.

I haven’t done anything on Trump since then, I suppose because there doesn’t seem to be much more to add to the view of the man implicit in that piece, that he’s a buffoon.  All that remains to be established is whether he’s a buffoon as a result of genetic inheritance or of political calculation.  I suspect the latter.  Anyway, it would be unfair to blame his father who didn’t, as far as I know, suffer from any serious mental issues.  No, this whole Donald-for-President thing is an exercise cooked up by a petulant, attention-seeking, child-person of limited intellect but an enormous ego who yearns to make something of himself that wasn’t inherited from his Dad.

I wouldn’t ban him from entering Britain, as has been proposed in some liberal quarters, at least not for being an idiot.  The Hard Left would keep him out because they think he’s a fascist bigot.  That’s a valid point of view, I suppose, although it ignores the fact that Buckingham Palace has often hosted banquets for fascist and communist dictators, many of them guilty of what we delicately refer to as ethnic cleansing, and other atrocities.  Anyway, if Trump were to be elected to the White House, reflecting the democratic will of the American people – our friends, kindred spirits and allies – what would we do then?  What would they do?

Now, that would be a special relationship.

Yes, I know a Trump triumph is an awfully long shot – not to mention what Americans would call a ‘nightmare scenario’ (‘Orwellian’ if you’re British) but his standing in the polls remains stubbornly and worryingly high.  Moreover, the following pack of Republican candidates doesn’t exactly represent the best of American brainpower or political savvy – or anything else of note – which means it’s no longer inconceivable that Trump will be Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the presidential election.  At which point, of course, anything might happen.

And I’m prepared to record that it would reflect badly on the sour mood and ingrained prejudice of American voters ….etcetera, and so on.  But thinking that way gets us nowhere.  (It’s a less sad reflection on British voters that Corbyn has become Leader of the Opposition, but he’s no more a potential statesman than Trump – and nobody in his party seems capable of rising to challenge him either.)

My guess, though, perhaps founded more on unshakeable optimism than profound intuition, is that, for different reasons, neither Trump nor Corbyn will be around this time next year.

Trump, in short, may be as aberrant as he is abhorrent.

As an idle footnote, I was recently involved in a lunchtime party game in which I was invited to come up with a limerick about Trump.  The result isn’t worth recounting.  But try it yourself.  ‘Trump’ is almost perfect for the purpose, nearly all the rhyming words having a negative connotation.  Start with chump, dump, grump, hump, jump, lump, mump, plump, rump, slump, stump and thump.

There, I’ve got a Trump column out of the way, and with the right conclusion.  The man’s a bigoted fool who won’t fool the American voters for much longer.

Happy now, reader?

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