An indecent blend of racism, envy

My distant, possible relative Donald Trump excelled himself with his call for anyone he doesn’t like the look of – meaning in particular four outspoken Democratic congresswomen – to go home, as in back where they came from.

One of the women was born outside the US. The other three are there on the same footing as he is, as a second-generation German/Scot. I know that logic, reason, decency, and such are not his forte, but Trump tosses out this offensive nonsense like spittle. He lacks the genes for embarrassment or shame. It’s a marvel, but not a good one.

I claim connection, reluctant as I am, because his mother was a McLeod from the same area in Scotland as my ancestors. I’m in no hurry to return to my roots on Skye, which seem to involve a small village with the unlovely name of Uigg. Combined with the Leod in our names – which roughly means our medieval ancestor was an ‘‘ugly Viking’’ – I see no promise of joy in such a reunion.

Neither would he be welcomed back to the Hebrides. They’ve got enough problems. But it’s possible that only people with pale skin hang out there, which would be a comfort to him. The glaringly obvious fact that the four congresswomen all have brown skin – and brains – points to his unself-conscious racism and envy (the brains part).

Vice-President Mike Pence, with a toady’s instinctive timing, followed through with an expression of pride in the Mexican border holding pens where children of all ages are held separate from their parents, and all moulder in miserable overcrowding, in a desperate attempt to emigrate to the US. He ‘‘couldn’t be more impressed’’, Pence said of the work of border officials. I couldn’t be less.

All this is why I am a fan of Sir Kim Darroch, the former British ambassador to the US, some of whose confidential memos have been leaked, forcing his resignation for the crime of telling the truth about White House dysfunction.

It’s the job of diplomats to tell the truth as they see it, and I hope the smarty-pants who leaked the memo gets transported to the Tower of London and fed to the ravens. The mania for disclosing confidential documents has its adoring fans, but it’s reckless, and in this case brought a good man down merely for articulating what everyone already observed.

As they say of comedy, it’s tragedy seen from a distance. Or in this case, is it the other way round?

In all the depressing news about immigration, racism, recklessness, and casual cruelty of the past week, one story stood out in intriguing contrast.

Australian model Adau Mornyang, a former Miss World Australia finalist, was sentenced this week for attacking a flight attendant and yelling a racial slur at an air marshal on a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles during which she annoyed fellow passengers with an obscene tirade, and threw her socks, while seemingly under the influence of wine. To put it daintily.

Mornyang was born in South Sudan, which in Trump logic means she should go back there. But I prefer to see her as a well-integrated Australian citizen, her only crime behaving as naturally as other little Aussie battlers I have known. The only difference was that she expressed remorse.