Newly chosen Dem candidate for Vice-President Tim Walz created a new meme two weeks ago when he described Donald Trump (and his cult) as "weird". That caught on as a kind of novel way to depict the Trumpers, but still left many (like me) wanting for more visceral depictions. Enter Brit writer Nate White who was recently challenged with the question: "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?"
White wrote the following response, making full use of the English vocabulary without a single f-bomb:
A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's
limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He's more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless or female – and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third –
of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think
'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy' is a matter of some confusion and no
little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and most are.
• You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit.
His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster
assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
Donald Trump's attacks on Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during his Atlanta rally Saturday were not new. The former president, ex-Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer, and MAGA allies have long blamed the two Republican leaders for Trump's 2020 loss in the state.
Not only did Trump claim Kemp and Raffensperger are "doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win," but the MAGA hopeful also attacked the governor — who has still vowed to back the ex-president in November — via social media, calling Kemp a "bad guy" for refusing to overturn the election.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein reported Sunday that Trump's attacks on Georgia state leaders during his rally "reopened festering internal wounds within the Georgia GOP and left fellow Republicans baffled and seething at the timing of his tirade."
Conservative activist and Kemp ally Cole Muzio told the AJC, "Attacking a successful and popular governor is not only wrong, it’s politically stupid."
Ahead of 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's Philadelphia rally Tuesday, former President Donald Trump shared a social media post that is causing political experts to question his sanity.
Senator JD Vance (R-OH) — Trump's running mate — also appeared at a separate event in Philadelphia on Tuesday, in which the GOP lawmaker called the vice president a "disaster," and the governor a "radical lefty."
The former president took to Truth Social ahead of Harris and Walz's appearance, writing:
What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the history of the U.S., whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Lunatic Left, CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE. He feels that he made a historically tragic mistake by handing over the U.S. Presidency, a COUP, to the people in the World he most hates, and he wants it back, NOW!!!
A slew of lawmakers, journalists and legal experts did not hold back on their thoughts around the MAGA hopeful's comments.
Conservative and former Bulwark editor-in-chief Charlie Sykes replied: "Can we just say it? the guy is fuqqing nuts."
The Nation's Elie Mystal added: My dude wanted to run against Biden so badly that he is now producing fanfic."
And:— from Robert Reich's Substack
Friends,
Today, Trump held an hourlong news conference in the main room at Mar-a-Lago. He insulted Kamala Harris’s intelligence, lied about the state of the U.S. economy, and claimed the country would be in mortal danger if he didn’t win the election.
In other words, the usual Trump torrent of lies and insults.
But what got my attention was his description of his departure from the White House as a “peaceful” transfer of power, his insistence that the group that mounted the assault on the Capitol was relatively small, and his boast that attendance at his January 6 rally preceding the assault was larger than the crowd Martin Luther King Jr. drew on the National Mall for his “I Have a Dream” speech.
“If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours — same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not — we had more.”
Friends, these are not the statements of a sane person.
Trump is showing growing signs of dementia.
— from Robert Reich's Substack
I am proud to announce that I’ve asked Tim Walz to be my running mate,” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said this morning. “One of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle-class families run deep. It’s personal.”
She went on to say:
He grew up in a small town in Nebraska, spending summers working on his family’s farm. His father died of cancer when he was 19, and his family relied on Social Security survivor benefit checks to make ends meet. At 17, he enlisted in the National Guard, serving for 24 years. He used his GI Bill benefits to go to college, and become a teacher. He served as both the football coach and the advisor of the Gay-Straight Alliance.
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