A Brit's Thoughts on Trump's Election
The Taliban Praised Trump for Defeating a Woman. That's a Hint.
I was an undergraduate in my final year of a BA Honours in History at University College, Cardiff in 1970/71, and to my disgust—I was a specialist in Medieval Socio-economic History—we had a compulsory course in USA modern history. As we discussed the 1930s and 1940s, our lecturer commented that “the USA was willing to fight Hitler to the last Englishman.”
I thought it amusing at the time, but as the years passed and I got to know my father-in-law, Rupert Chapman, Jr., a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, I softened my views. He was a wonderful, gentle, decent, humane man who did his duty to defeat fascism. He was no liberal—he was raised in rural Mississippi—but a man to respect and love. He earned his Bronze Star and Purple Heart—no bone spurs for him.
So how come the USA has just elected a fascist head of state? I use the term fascist with care and not lightly. I am familiar with Umberto Eco’s Fourteen Characteristics of Fascism and other definitions, and I believe that this time Trump has earned the label.
We have many “wannabe” Mussolinis and Hitlers across the world, but for the leader of the USA and nominally at least the leader of the Free World to be one of them requires an honesty in evaluating what has happened, which in my opinion has been lacking in some quarters.
Some of my family and friends will find this difficult reading, but, back in the day, when I was a professional local government officer, and a large part of my job was to give advice to elected Members, it was said of me, “Helen does not call a spade a spade. She calls it a bloody shovel.” It was meant as a compliment, and I have always taken it as one. The ramifications of the recent vote are significant for the whole world, and especially our family and friends in the USA, and we do no one any favours by being mealy-mouthed or pulling punches.
Listening to excuses from those who voted for Trump, especially non-aligned or Democrat voters, they frankly beggar belief. Pop, my father-in-law, used to say that “in this day and age” (and he was speaking before the Internet as we know it today), there is no excuse for ignorance. We all have access to information if we wish to find it. Seek and ye shall find, and a lot of people are going to be in for something of a shock, or as a US expert said on TV the other day, buyers’ remorse.
We have a saying here in political circles that political parties do not win elections. They lose them. The bottom line is:
US citizens would not vote for a woman of colour. There are other factors—“the economy, stupid”—but the figures appear to show, at the point of this writing, that Americans, including women, would not elect a woman to the Presidency.
Back in 2008, after the shock of electing a man of colour had worn off, the mantra chanted like a religious truth, to explain this aberration was “only in America.” The rest of the world, me included, was thinking, “What took you so long?” In the end it was an American journalist (sorry, I forget who) that said what we out here were thinking: that the USA was years behind much of the rest of the world.
In the week that the USA rejected a highly qualified woman of colour, the UK Conservative Party elected a woman of colour as their leader. That is, elected by the wider CONSERVATIVE party, not the MPs. They elected her, not her male, white alternative candidate. She is the fourth female leader of her party.
I do not share or support her political views, and it is said that she could start a fight in an empty room. But she is not unique—as a woman—in getting elected. There have been a number of elections across the world in the last 12 months or so in which the successful candidate was a woman. Some of them would be considered developing rather than developed countries!
Today I read that the Taliban are congratulating Trump for putting a woman in her place. Yet Americans would rather vote for a convicted rapist who disrespects your military, disabled people, as well as women and ethnic minorities—not to mention the Constitution.
There seems to me to be one explanation, and it would appear, from what I have read over the last few days, that I am not alone in coming to this conclusion. The USA is a misogynistic and racist nation that wants an authoritative “emperor” to rule them. Not so different from 1930s Germany.
Do American women really want to be ruled—not governed—by an apology of a man like Donald Trump? There are many people in the USA who find the results of the election hateful, incomprehensible, threatening, and more, and I congratulate them for their courage. I fear that they are going to need that courage again sooner rather than later, and without the privacy of the ballot box.
However, as I have said, we cannot escape the fact that a majority or you either voted for him or abstained. I was raised in the Church of England. That is, to believe that failing to do what is right is as bad as actually doing what is wrong. All those who voted for Trump—all those who failed to vote at all—all of you will be complicit in any evils which, if he is actually telling the truth, will follow from his actions.
“I did not know” is no defense because you were told but did not want to hear.
And the evil which will follow from Trump’s policies will impact the whole world. I did not have a vote, but I shall still be impacted by Trump policies, just as Pacific Islanders will be destroyed because some Americans refuse to believe in Global Warming. Those of you who voted for Trump and those who failed to vote against him are guilty of throwing your friends and allies abroad to the wolves and of sacrificing your neighbours, those who live and work amongst you, who harvest your food and do the jobs you would prefer not to do. And for what? A quiet life? You are about to be unpleasantly surprised, when they come for you. (Acknowledgement to Pastor Martin Niemoller.)
Boris Johnson was known as “Trump lite” whilst he was Prime Minister. He hung on through all manner of scandal, but in reality we kicked him out pretty quickly when his hypocrisy and corruption was undeniable. One term, in the end. It is reliably reported that his autobiography has flopped in the shops. No gold trainers for him!
I wish I were confident that the USA will treat Trump and Trumpism the same, but I fear that I am not, at least when faced with a servile Republican Party and a compliant Supreme Court. And if he lives long enough to be “fired,” what damage will he have done to the rest of us?
Winston Churchill said that you could rely on the USA to do the right thing, but only after trying everything else. Not sure we can hold on that long.
Helen Chapman
11 November 2024 – In Memoriam
That the USA is a 'misogynistic and racist nation' is sadly right, though I would make the point that it's even deeper. When some enterprising anthropologists and later folklorists studied the music in the remote regions of the southern mountains they found more primitive versions of the music there than there were in their places of origin.
I think the same thing is true of their religion. It's primal as hell, and a form of extreme Calvinism further perverted by slavery and the Great Awakenings movements which made a deal with the devil to the effect that black people could hope for justice in the afterlife but that they were screwed in this world with God's mandate and approval.
The point is they hate all of creation for its corruption and impurity. They hate themselves for their corruption and impurity, and so long for the life after. Women and minorities are archetypally perceived as closer to nature and less pure. And seen as sinful and the occasion of sin. Also as prone to enjoy life, which they find scary and abhorrent.
So it's not just about persecuting and hating on people. They long to see the end of the world. This is so nuts it works in their favor. People can't see it or doubt it if they do, let alone that this minority outlook could overtake the country but it has by virtue of the Southern Strategy. Republicans kept throwing this voting bloc bad, race-baiting stuff.
They got into a self-reinforcing cycle, a doom loop. The crazies got crazier and the Republicans more powerful and entrenched, and Republicans increasingly had to give the nutcases what they demanded to satisfy them. That gets us to Trump, their end-times man. An absolute wrecking ball. So it's not just about women and minorities.
It's about an utter contempt for life and a desire to see the world go up in flames. Look into the popularity of the 'Left Behind' books. They're more crazy than you can imagine and it's mostly unconscious. Michelle Goldberg wrote typically well on this, including in an old article 'Fundamentally Unsound' in Salon if I remember right.
May I throw another spanner into the works, log on the fire (pick your own metaphor). I have long had an interest in Constitutions (I am by no means an expert) and before I retired I was responsible for changes, interpretations etc of the Local Authority's Constitution, Terms of Reference etc., Rules etc. and it seems to me that part of the problem in the USA is a common attitude towards the US Constitution. I remember more than a decade ago asking if anyone was considering if a Constitution written in the 4th quarter of the 18 Century was still fit for purpose in the 1st quarter of the 21st. From the responses I thought I might be heading for at least the Ducking Stool, if not being burnt as a heretic. The "Founders" expected it to be changed and it has been regularly but lately I think I have seen a growth of a view that sees the document to be (in the words of Rusty Bowers) "Divinely Inspired". Such an approach is to put it politely, unhelpful. It is also dangerous when it can be shown as "fatally flawed" thanks to recent rulings by the Supreme Court. How are you going to get rid of the Electoral College? Of Gerrymandering for starters? The Senate where I believe 70% of the senators represent 30% of the people? Our 1st past the post is bad enough but I have done revisions of electoral boundaries and that you still allow this beggars belief over here. We faced a similar structural problem here more than 100 years ago when the unelected Lords vetoed popular legislation from the Commons. The PM brought forward legislation to reform the Lords to remove their veto. How did we get the turkeys to vote for Christmas? The King (George Vth I think) who understood his role in a Constitutional Monarchy, told the Lords that if they did not pass the reforms he would create enough new Liberal Lords to change the politics of the House for generations. They voted for Christmas. If your Constitution has such a get out card, please tell me, because otherwise I really cannot see a peaceful answer to the problem - perhaps there is no problem? We are over thinking it? Or is it beyond repair, fatally flawed? I hope I am wrong and am not proving to be a modern Cassandra. I am looking at things from a long way away, after all, but I can already see some signs of the rot setting in here. So please be quick.