[Vision2020] Why So Many British People not like Donald Trump? (priceless)

[Nicholas Gier]

Here is Nate White’s answer to the question, “Why do some British people
not like Donald Trump.” It’s written so well, so strongly, that I wonder
whether an intelligent rebuttal could ever be done.

https://timpanogos.blog/2019/06/24/nate-whites-stunning-answer-to-the-question-why-do-many-british-people-not-like-donald-trump/
Nate White’s stunning answer to the question: Why do many British people
not like Donald Trump?

It was a question asked on Quora last February 12: Why do many British
people not like Donald Trump?
Nate White is a London-based copy writer — that is, advertising guy. His
Quora profile says, “Drinks coffee. Writes copy.” Nate took a swing at
answering the question, and knocked that ball into orbit.



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 – 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 mostly 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.

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.

Nate White, answering a question on Quora
Sadly, for some reason the thread has been deleted from Quora
<https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Brits-hate-Trump-I-am-a-Brit-myself-and-I-admire-what-he-is-doing?curator=MediaREDEF&redirected_qid=24006100>
(threats
from Trump’s side?) Several people were inspired to preserve it on blogs
and in other forms. Ronald Lebow (@RonaldLebow) posted the piece in a
series of Tweets, a thread, recently, and I finally found the entire piece
from which I had seen only parts quoted before.


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-- 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
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