Pat McArt: Even the Americans have had enough of Trump now |
MOJACAR is a small but, according to the guide books, impressive town in southern Spain where a lot of Brits used to congregate.
Years ago I recall walking along the seafront and hearing nothing but English accents. Signs for fish and chips or ‘Full English Breakfast – £3.99’ were ubiquitous.
It was like Blackpool in the sun.
That was then, this is now.
Chris Donnelly: Never mind education, let’s have a row about Union flag bags
Patrick Murphy: United Ireland? United in incompetence, maybe
Myself and the missus were there last Wednesday and the only English voice I heard was some guy with massive beer belly roaring into a phone about something or other. He definitely wasn’t a happy chappie.
But his obvious annoyance did draw my attention to the fact that these days most of the accents are German, Scandinavian or Belgian, with the odd French phrase thrown in.
Mr Annoyed was the only Brit accent I heard on my 20-minute stroll along the playa.
Brexit has definitely changed the demographics.
And that brought to mind how much the world has changed in the past 10 years.
A couple of hours later I was sitting on the balcony of the place we were staying late in the evening with a glass of wine, enjoying the last rays of the sun, when a woman doing exactly the same on the next balcony asked me if I was enjoying my break.
We started talking and she told me her name was Martina. She was American from New Mexico.
In the ensuring conversation I learned that both herself and her husband were relatively wealthy, and were planning to move permanently to Spain. They weren’t on holiday. They were house-hunting.
I asked her why.
She didn’t hold back: “America is full of hate now. Everything is changed.
“I am 60. My husband is several years older than me. He’s of Mexican descent, and racism is out in the open. We are not going to live the rest of our lives in a culture like that. Not a chance.”
I found her views fascinating. This was a real live American talking about life in Trump’s America.
What started out, or so I presumed at the time, to be a brief encounter was anything but. Indeed, I found myself and my missus sitting chatting to her for almost two hours, continuing on to well after midnight.
And she was scathing about Trump.
“Don’t even talk to me about that man,” she remarked, before launching into a diatribe about his recent postings in regard to Pope Leo and his sharing of a image where he was depicted Christ-like.
“It was disgraceful. I am ashamed to say that we have a vulgar moron as president. He has no respect for anyone.” And on she went for about five minutes without taking a breath.
My main takeaway from our conversation was that many Americans detest Trump way, way more than we do. For them it’s deeply personal.
My main takeaway from our conversation was that many Americans detest Trump way, way more than we do. For them it’s deeply personal
Martina made the point that her husband’s ancestry was now an issue in a way it wasn’t a decade or so ago. His father was born in America and so was he, but the fact that he wasn’t a white European had become an issue.
Work that out, if you can…
In the time since that lengthy conversation I have been viewing a lot of social media, and it’s beyond clear that while most of the world is appalled at Trump’s ridiculous posts comparing himself to Jesus, the Trump cult is not.
They have attempted to explain it away as either ‘a joke’ or meant to show him ‘healing people’. Indeed, Trump himself has tried to suggest that it was a media overreaction, that it was the ‘fake news’ people who were to blame for the blasphemous interpretation.
This kind of denial is taking absurdity to ridiculous levels.
One pundit I came across explained that there was no uniform outrage, that core supporters mostly stick with him, while religious leaders and moderates were, he suggested, ‘uneasy’.
As I read that, the thought occurred what an absolutely anodyne word to describe a man with 34 felony convictions, a conviction for sexual abuse, a man who was found guilty by an American court for misusing charity funds for his own personal benefit, a man who said he would blast Iran’s civilisation back to the stone age… that this man can compare himself to Jesus and his supporters still, well, support him.
So far, if memory serves me well, apart from insulting the Pope, he’s also insulted most of his old allies in Europe, particularly Starmer and Macron, he’s alienated Canada big time, he’s invaded Iran and Venezuela, he’s imposed tariffs on most of the US’s trading partners, threatened to annex Greenland by force if necessary, referred to African countries as s***holes, seen his ICE forces kill two people on American streets, accepted a $400m plane from Qatar for his personal use but denies that is anyway corrupt, has accepted a Nobel Peace Prize that was not his, has been the recipient of a fake FIFA award… and hardly a single member of the Republican Party has said a word of condemnation. This is normal?
It’s unbelievable.
Insane doesn’t even come close to describing all this. Not by a million miles…
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