Donald Trump: A British Perspective

It’s fun to mock the Americans. In fact it’s a bit of a tradition in this country, carrying a cultural significance somewhere between that of Morris Dancing and 'The National Lottery: In It to Win It'. It’s also fine. No-one feels guilty for it, probably because Americans are actually better off than we are and to be honest we're a bit jealous. For comparison, we don’t spend that much time ridiculing the Sudanese with their overwhelming poverty and war-torn recent history. No, that would be cruel. We just sell them weapons and leave it at that.

However jealous we may be, though, Donald Trump makes it hard not to laugh. Sure, it's difficult to gauge what kind of level he's operating on (he could be an actual moron; he could also be Sacha Baron Cohen in a fat-suit; chances are he's somewhere in between but we just don't know), but British coverage of his anti-Mexican/anti-woman/anti-arbitrary-oppressed-minority campaign has been tinged with self-satisfaction. The fact that he could, potentially, at some point, get elected, makes us feel pretty smug. 

Of course this is the wrong way to react, for two reasons. Firstly, as you may have noticed, every now and then decisions made by the American government make some kind of impact on other parts of the world. It's only every so often, and I can't think of any recent examples, but it does happen. Secondly, it's not like we're any better really, is it? Boris Johnson, for instance, is The Mayor of London. I don't know about you, but that reeks to me of a poor decision: the most ethnically diverse city in Europe is run not by a respectable politician but by a man that looks like the Hitler Youth alternative to Mr Blobby. 'Herr Flobblesquatch and his treehouse of racially pure fun' - that's what we voted for.

But Johnson and Trump have a surprising amount in common. Like London's bumbling toff, Trump has managed to make total incompetence one of his selling points: a perverse form of self-marketing usually reserved for reality TV stars and children between the ages of 1 and 4. We don't know what they're going to do next, but we do know it might involve some poo and a badly drawn picture of a starfish, so we stick a camera on them and woop whenever they start dribbling. This is the Trump tactic. He's a walking atrocity, but it's earned him the electorate's attention. Moreover, because of his immense fallibility, Trump appears slightly more human than his rivals. Not physically of course - he still looks like a golden retriever egg - but by being an outspoken prick he is at least demonstrating an extremely common human trait. This is advantageous, particularly in a world of voters bored of robot politicians showcasing about the same emotional range as Hayden Christensen's Anakin.*

*Now, you might point out that David Cameron managed to win the UK general election, and he emits all the warmth and humanity of your average hub-cap; in fact if you put a crying toddler in a room containing only him and a Dyson Airblade, the toddler would crawl towards and passionately hug the latter. This is true, but to be fair he only he only won the election against another, weaker robot - one presumably built by the losing team in an episode of scrapheap challenge, and with its central computer sourced from a discarded Tamagotchi.

Anyway, Trump's probably not going to win, but if he does we'll be witness to a social experiment akin to when someone lets their dog take the wheel of their car - except the car's already going at about 200mph, and the dog is convinced it can drive. From a British perspective, I hope this doesn't happen. Not because I wouldn't find it entertaining - just with America being reduced to rubble, it'll no longer be okay to take the piss.