The British media are seriously worried that the latest spat between Prime Minister David Cameron and Donald Trump will lead to the end of the much ballyhooed “special relationship” between the two countries.
Trump is due to visit Britain in August according to The Daily Telegraph for a fundraiser hosted by U.S. citizens abroad.
Cameron has refused to withdraw his comments that Trump’s statements about Muslims were “divisive, stupid and wrong.”
In return Trump said, “It looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship. Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him but he's not willing to address the problem either.”
Let Cameron wear it as a badge of honor that Britain will not have a good relationship with Trump if he becomes president of the United States.
His campaign is one founded on bigotry, racism and hate. His imitation of a handicapped journalist, his warlike words against Mexicans and his blanket ban on Muslims may now be acceptable to his craven comrades in the Republican Party, but they cannot be ever acceptable to those outside of that cult-like party which grows weirder every day with each Trump bizarre utterance.
Yet it appears Trump now has a fighting chance in the November election based on recent battleground polls.
Cameron must not stand alone in his direct and absolute disqualification of Trump as an acceptable president of the most powerful country on earth, one with his finger on the nuclear button.
Amazingly Irish Americans are in the vanguard of support for Trump, as are Italian Americans and many of the old one ethnics.
It behooves Taoiseach Enda Kenny to also make it clear like Cameron that Trump would be unacceptable in Ireland where his son, the “big game hunter” Eric, visited last week, drumming up support for his father’s campaign and opening their new golf course in Doonbeg, Co. Clare.
What Irish leaders say is important to Irish Americans, and any reminder of what kind of damage a figure like Trump could do to international relations should include an Irish component.
The British understand fascism from their war experience and the ability of demagogues to impact millions with their screeds.
Ireland too, from its own negative experience, knows what foreign tyrants can achieve, and Trump certainly threatens to be one.
What is next after the handicapped, the foreigner, the Muslim, the weakest in society?
And the lies keep coming, such as how Trump can bring companies back to America. But no American company whatsoever has to buckle under such an order, even from a president. Trump cannot impose tariffs or trade bans unless he can get such legislation through Congress.
He is not speaking the truth on that either, yet so many have been taken in it is enough to feel a sense of despair.
Which is why it is time for men and women of goodwill from wherever in the world to make clear such a proto-fascist is unacceptable as the world’s leader.
The incredible collapse and knee bending of the Republican Party honchos, with the honorable exception of House Speaker Paul Ryan, has been dreadful to witness but cannot become a signal for others to capitulate.
Ireland too needs to get on the record about Trump. His policies have no place anywhere on earth, even less so in the United States.
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