A View From Across The Pond

Posted on by under Global Issues, Humour, Political commentary, Social commentary

Our Brit friends are pretty savvy people who aren’t afraid to speak the truth, and yet have a terrific sense of humour, albeit sometimes a dry one.  Remember back in 2016 when so many of us were seriously puzzled as to what people saw in Donald Trump, and when we asked trumpeters, seriously trying to understand his appeal, their only response was that “he tells it like it is.”  No clue what ‘it’ was, but whatever ‘it’ was, he told it … like it was.  Or so they believed.  Well, one British writer has summed up Donald Trump from across the pond, and he truly “tells it like it is”!

Here’s writer Nate White, writing for the London Daily …

British Writer Pens The Best Description Of Trump I’ve Read

Nate White

“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:

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.

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37 thoughts on “A View From Across The Pond”

  1. Jill, when people say Trump “tells it like it is” the easy rebuttal is as follows.

    “Donald Trump self-professes a disdain of studying or reading, so he does not know what “it” is. Plus, if he happened to stumble upon what “it” is, chances are is he would “lie” about what it is.”

    Please reread the above, but in case people still have a hard time understanding this, there is a great response from a head of a LTC facility during the COVID pandemic. When he was asked how his facility was able to avoid COVID cases, he said succinctly – President Trump said we should not worry, so that is when I started to worry and acted.

    In other words, Trump is more likely to tell you what “it isn’t.”

    Keith

    Liked by 2 people

    • PS – To show how easily duped Trump’s base is, my wife just was told by one of her MAGA family friends that COVID was Joe Biden’s fault. He must have forgotten those awful Trump led press conferences, the naysaying, the failure to act, the ingesting antiseptic cleaner, Trump’s own COVID case, etc. Trump’s failure with addressing COVID is one of the key reasons why 142 historians rated Trump as the 4th worst US president. It reminds me when some Republicans blamed Obama for the 2007-08 housing crisis recession when he did not become president until January, 2009.

      Keith

      Liked by 2 people

      • WHAT??? How does she figure it’s Joe Biden’s fault? He wasn’t even in government at the time Covid started! Somebody drank too much Kool Aid, I think. Unfortunately for the people of this nation, too many of them will believe those lies, like the one I read tonight that the attempted coup on January 6th had been proven to be an undercover job by the FBI. I gather that was stated by Ramaswamy in tonight’s debate … and how many ordinary people will hear that, believe it, and run to spread the lie packaged as “fact”? Sigh.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. The London Daily is an online news feed that has little traction in Britain. However, the writer was spot-on about Trump, a man with very few (if any) fans in the UK. I have never heard anyone say one good thing about the Orange Monster.
    Best wishes, Pete.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Yes, Clive brought that to my attention, too! I should have done my homework before posting this, but I would have posted it anyway, for whatever the source, it is spot-on accurate. I don’t think any of my UK friends have ever had anything positive to say about Trump, and frequently they compared him to Boris … though I think Boris was less evil than Trump. I truly believe Trump is a cruel ‘man’ without a heart.

      Liked by 2 people

  7. I’ve seen this piece as an answer on Quora, which is just as well as I’ve never heard of the London Daily! It’s a fair summary and explains why the only Brits who like him are followers of Johnson and Farage.

    Liked by 3 people

    • A quick PS: I just looked it up, and it was written in 2019. Quora have since taken it down but a Google search brings up loads of places where it is still available. Probably not in Florida, though…

      Liked by 4 people

    • Well, it looks like I should have done my homework on this one! Better late than never, though. I did find the “London Daily” referenced here: https://londondaily.com And I did find the British Journalist Nate White, but only on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ipitythepoorfo1 I have no idea if this piece was ever actually published outside of Quora, but it sure is getting airspace this week … I’ve run across it numerous times already! Sigh. But either way, he is spot on in everything he says, and yes, those who like Trump are also fans of BoJo, Farage, Bolsonaro and other political loons! Thanks for the info … next time I’ll do the research first 🫣

      Liked by 2 people

      • It’s odd how that sometimes happens. Maybe Liz Cheney found it and is sharing it! As far as I can tell the London Daily is an online pretend newspaper that just lifts its content from Google News. Beware thinking of it as a trustworthy source for the future!

        I agree, whoever he is it is very accurate 😊

        Liked by 2 people

  8. Up until several decades ago, Kiwis were often described as being more British than the British. We’ve moved on since then but it’s still true that we still have similar sensibilities to the British, with a somewhat drier sense of humour and an even stronger sense of fair play. And being the least corrupt nation on earth the dishonesty and self importance that exudes from Trump’s pores is toxic, even for our Christian fundamentalists

    Liked by 3 people

    • I never knew that Kiwis were “more British than the British”! But yes, you guys have, as I’ve noted before, much more sense than we do in MANY areas … guns, governance, humanity, voting, etc. Trump is toxic and his poison will spread until it touches every country on the planet … this is why he simply must be stopped … one way or another!

      Liked by 1 person

  10. Pingback: A View From Across The Pond | Filosofa’s Word | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

    • Indeed … sometimes I wish we were a bit more like the Brits, too! Did you see Clive’s comment? Apparently this wasn’t current nor did it originate where I thought … it’s still a good piece, but I should have done a bit more checking.

      Liked by 1 person

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