LIKE SANE PEOPLE THE WORLD OVER, AUSTRALIA’S TOP CARTOONIST (AND FRIEND TO voiceofthenorth.net) WARREN BROWN HAS SERIOUS MISGIVINGS ABOUT A TRUMP PRESIDENCY. ABOVE, HE DONATES HIS TALENT TO THE CAUSE…
Okay, so Obama has had HIS say about which way Britain should vote in the EU referendum; now, when do ‘We the People’ get to have OUR say about the US presidential election and the nightmare march of Trump towards the White House?
At what in point in this ‘Wacky Races’ pre-election run-in that Americans call political primaries do we stop shuffling from foot to foot in embarrassment at the antics of ‘The Donald’ and those raving goofballs who appear to make up the majority of the Republican Party and start to worry seriously about where this hooligan’s madness is heading?
The US is in thrall to the Blonde Bumshell, its citizens mere non-speaking extras in a Disney remake of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Can THEY not bring themselves to call for the straitjacket?
Some can: a political diary note by GQ columnist Jack Moore one month BEFORE Trump secured the votes which have propelled him almost automatically to achieving the Republican nomination contained this dire warning amidst a report of the candidate’s increasingly bizarre behaviour:
THIS ELECTION CYCLE has transformed Donald Trump from political punchline [to someone who] might actually win a major party nomination.
In Albany [New York state], Trump’s weird campaign went to a whole different place . . . the real money shot was in the last forty seconds of a speech when Trump got hyped and said some variation of the word “win” fourteen different times.
The crowd seemed to enjoy it, but anyone watching at home might have seen a raving lunatic rather than a serious politician.
The weirdest part of the rant wasn’t the fact that the TrumpBot4500’s wiring short-circuited leading him to just repeat the words “win” and “winning” so many times that they began to lose all meaning. No, the weirdest part of the rant was the picture it painted of a world where Trump is President and he makes America win so much that the American people actually beg him to stop winning:
“You’ll say, ‘Please, please, it’s too much winning. We can’t take it any more. Mr. President, it’s too much.’ And I’ll say, ‘No it isn’t!'” [Yes, that really IS what he said – Ed.]
That didn’t dismay redneck Republicans and it set few alarm bells ringing in the minds of mainstream members of a party that once produced Abraham Lincoln (who is surely turning in his premature grave). Indeed, most of the US just shrugged, kept calm and carried on. They’re used to madmen over there.
Other US commentators have pointed out, in vain, the inconsistencies and downright reckless politicking of this much-married, oft-bankrupt golfing hotelier. VoiceoftheNorth.net columnist Murray Forseter wrote recently in his Huffington Post column:
WITH EACH PASSING DAY we are treated to a new version of Donald Trump. After the massacre of students at the Sandy Hook School he praised President Obama for taking a strong stance against gun violence. “President Obama spoke for me and every American,” Trump tweeted. Weeks later he told the National Rifle Association annual convention he would do away with gun-free zones, even in schools. Later that weekend he appeared to U-turn yet again.
How did he go from gun control to gun proliferation? He doesn’t tell us. It’s okay to change positions if the reasons for change are carefully, logically explained. But Trump just spouts positions based on the audience before him.
He has reversed stands on a woman’s right to control her own body, on immigration, planned parenthood and a host of other issues.
Moving the goalposts makes it difficult to effectively attack him. Even in the face of video tape proof he denies contradiction. And the public seemingly does not care about his inconsistencies.
So, to right-wing extremists hell-bent on building walls to keep out Mexicans and Muslims add a mard-arse media that in this campaign rarely barks and never bites and you have a blonde-rinse Republican getting away with blue murder.
My friend Forseter, an East Coast Democrat by inclination and a veteran journalist of some distinction, is equally scornful of the US press corps:
INSTEAD OF PRESSING him for details, the compliant media simply regurgitates his mouthings. Over the weekend, Trump called Hillary Clinton “weak.” The press didn’t ask for any proof; they merely and freely publicised this unfounded and clearly misogynist allegation.
Given the choice of showing a plodding Clinton artfully explaining why she is better qualified to be president or Trump popping out a new absurdity (that on the surface reinforces her argument) the media become his co-conspirator in co-opting the electoral dialogue. To media old and new, both print and electronic, Trump is the sexier story.
You see, the US Fourth Estate which gave the world Watergate can – for all its occasional Woodwards and Bernesteins – be as cowardly as our domestic media can be crass. But maybe crass is what we need right now. Maybe Prime Minister, press and public should let Trump know just what we think of him
The tinpot tycoon is planning a ‘whistlestop tour’ (how presidential!) of his British golf properties, arriving in this country on June 22nd, conveniently just in time to stick his beak into our Big Vote the following day.
Fortunately, unlike Obama he’s a great believer in Brexit. He can’t wait to see Britain pull out of Europe. “All the better for our Special Relationship, li’l ol’ country cousin!” he’ll be telling them in the clubhouse at Trump Turnberry.
Yuk! If that isn’t enough to make you want to snuggle up to the Spanish, French kiss the Germans and have a giggle with the Greeks then I’m a Dutchman’s uncle!’
That should teach you to let blinking foreigners carve up the estate!
I kind of like the French and the Dutch anyway.
Perhaps you should let Trump into Britain on the condition that he faces 15 minutes with John Humphrys!