After almost a day of Donald Trump becoming the leader of the free world, I’ve had enough of the man. Already the White House website has removed all references to climate change, civil Rights, LGBT rights and affordable health care. Trump is going to make America great again but only for big oil and the rich. Many ordinary white men and women who voted for Trump will find their lives becoming very miserable. Do you think I am calling the people who voted for Trump stupid? Well, yes I am, actually. Mainly stupid white men.
Do bear in mind that the people who adore Trump and what he stands for are the stupid white men of Ukip, Farage, Banks, Nuttall et al who stand for exactly the same things that he does. Even though Ukip’s job is complete, that of extracting the UK from the European Union, the alarming decline of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn gives them continuing reasons to exist, now – somewhat laughably – as the party of the working class. Yes, a hard right establishment group of wealthy white me posing as the voice of the working woman and man.
The worry for me are the consequences of Trump. What America does first we usually follow later. I do not believe the decision of voters to leave the EU is the end of the anti-politics movement in this country. It could be just the start. As leaving the EU becomes ever more complex, shambolic and ultimately damaging to the country, I do not see leavers returning to politics as it was. Even having a very good president like Barack Obama who saved the US economy and completely turned it round was not enough for Americans. Those left behind by the march of globalism and unfettered capitalism wanted more, especially in the rust belt of America where whole industries have died. Trump dared to suggest that those industries could all be resurrected again, without explaining in the increasing age of automation just how. We have enough people left behind ourselves.
When Theresa May’s rhetoric about “a country that works for everyone” is found to be vacuous nonsense, where will the poor, the disillusioned and dispossessed turn next? In America, they turned to a bigoted billionaire bully as the man to save the country, to “Make America great again”. Where will we turn?
Within a few short hours of entering the White House, Obama’s Affordable Care Act is being taken apart with no replacement in the offing. 30 million people will be left without health insurance “at a stroke”, indeed let’s hope that no one has one. This will just be the start.
I can only assume that the majority of EU leavers bought into the philosophy of Ukip in general and Nigel Farage in particular which is a poundshop slogan of “Making the UK great again”, in effect pulling up the drawbridge to the rest of the world. In my world, anything that Nigel Farage stands for and believes in has to be a bad thing. A disciple of Trump, he is a thoroughly modern Mosley.
The light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be an onrushing train and with Trump in the White House, I see only darkness, division and conflict. Ultimately, the people usually get what they voted for and in the USA, as in Britain, the next decade or so will be very different. If you are a hard right xenophobe, homophobe, bigot, climate-change denier and anti-health care campaigner, your time has come.
