Saddened. I guess that’s how I would describe my current state. A couple of days ago, Donald Trump, the President of the U.S., decided to retweet some hate-mongering tweets which came from the account of Britain First. Britain First are a hateful far-right organisation who seem to exist to stir up hate against furriners and them Muslims, as far as I can make out.
It was a very un-Presidential thing to do, but I guess not unexpected when measured against the range of previous actions undertaken by this current President. When the British press and politicians condemned this action, he then tweeted directly to Theresa May, in public, that maybe she should not “focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom…”. Before he tweeted this to Theresa May, UK Prime Minister, he managed to “@” a completely different Theresa May, who just happens to have the same name as our PM.
I guess this just goes to show why one shouldn’t conduct diplomacy over Twitter. There are not enough characters, even with 280 available, to convey a subtle message. Not that there is anything subtle about Donald Trump. But if one goes through the proper channels, then one can be sure that one’s message will actually reach the intended recipient.
His spokesperson Sarah Sanders claimed that Trump was trying to “elevate the conversation” by taking to Twitter and retweeting these videos. I’m not sure that this was his intention. Twitter has become a bit of a free-for-all, and there is a degree of viciousness and muck-raking which you don’t see on Facebook for instance, and you certainly don’t see it in the Press. But there he was, on Twitter, retweeting Islamophobic videos and telling Theresa May to focus on her own backyard.
This of course became newsworthy, and so for a couple of news cycles, the first headline most people saw was the fact that Trump had retweeted fascist propaganda, and then he’d advised the Prime Minister of a foreign sovereign nation to “wind her neck in” (my summary).
It’s just tawdry. Where are the leaders to inspire us, where are the people with a vision of the future or even the present who can persuade us and prompt us to be better versions of ourselves? They are certainly not in power at the moment, not in the UK or the U.S.
This whole episode prompted me to go look at Trump’s tweets – I don’t follow him, I don’t see the need, especially when they become front page news anyway – and I found this beauty:
“If the Dems had won the Presidential Election, the Market would be down 50% from these levels and Consumer Confidence … would be “low and glum””. Just reflect on that for a minute. The President is stating that if the vote had gone differently, the U.S. stock market would be worth half of what it is worth now. Based on what? What research supports this? What is the scientific or economic theory indicating this outcome? I don’t think there are any. These are the mindless ramblings of a man who has some baseless beliefs and access to a social media platform.
I don’t understand how we’ve got to where we are today, but I know that it scares the shit out of me.
TTFN.
