I saw this quoted and shared on Google+, and all over the net once I went looking. As seen on Quora, someone asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White wrote:
“A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, ... 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 - 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:
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.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ’My God… what… have… I… created?’
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”
#USA #Trump
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Never have I ever read a description of this monster so articulately written with such profoundness. Awesome! Thank you!
– Lavern 2019-02-15 15:34 UTC
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Yeah, thank you, Nate White.
– Alex Schroeder 2019-02-15 20:38 UTC
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Brilliantly said - What most of Americans think but not many can articulate as clearly - Thanks so much for describing this wanna-be-human as he truly is, a total disaster,without heart or soul or concern for anyone but himself
– Elizabeth Daskarolis 2019-02-16 18:49 UTC
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At this point most Americans care about the economy (specifically jobs) and the end to constant wars in the middle east. Trump might be everything said in this post but he’s moving in the right direction on both issues that matter to most people in the USA right now and we have enough perspective to know this isn’t a until death do you part marriage, he’ll be gone when his term(s) are over.
– Ruprecht 2019-04-19 20:08 UTC
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Oh my. So, if the USA kills Qasem Soleimani, it’s either a war, or murder. Or is everybody an enemy combatant, now. Ugh.
– Alex Schroeder 2020-01-04 12:45 UTC
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The USA Doubles Down on its Saudi Allegiance:
The USA Doubles Down on its Saudi Allegiance
There will also today be rejoicing in Washington. There is nothing like an apparently successful military attack in a US re-election campaign. The Benghazi Embassy disaster left a deep scar upon the psyche of Trump’s support base in particular, and the message that Trump knows how to show the foreigners not to attack America is going down extremely well where it counts, whatever wise people on CNN may say.
– Alex Schroeder 2020-01-04 17:02 UTC