Republicans should boot Don out now
Only one name dominated my readers’ emails this week. I mean – just how unpopular can one guy be?
“I hope your going to throw the book at Donald Trump!” shouted one reader. And then another . . and another . . . with exactly the same booking throwing metaphor. How many books do you think I have?
But they did make me wonder – which book on my shelves might be appropriately heaved in The Don’s direction?
And after a quick scan, I’ve gone for my well- thumbed Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. There’s something pertinent on almost every page! Let’s start with Abraham Lincoln’s classic, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time . . . but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”.
Or how about Lord Acton’s clever word play, “Power corrupts . . . and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
And if I had to quote Mark Twain, it would be a toss up between his profound, “How easy it is to make people believe a lie – and how hard it is do undo it”.
Or his more frivolous, “Politicians and diapers need changed often – and both for the same reason”.
Yet the quote that fits best with Donald Trump is not from any great statesman or taken from any scholarly lexicon.
But you could have found in this very column - the week before last November’s presidential election.
And it’s too irresistible not to repeat it.
“Never settle, never apologise, never confess, and even if you lose . . . claim that you won”.
Donald John Trump first heard those words in the 1970s from a tough New York lawyer called Roy Cohn. And if a single sentence could explain the next 50 years of Donald Trump’s extraordinary life – that would be it.
Sticking unswervingly to the same manta - for most of your adult life – can sometimes be a great human quality. Trump’s mistake was going for the same mantra as a man who counselled New York’s mafia and whose final earthly act was to fake a signature on a client’s deathbed will – leaving him millions. They both died days later.
Like a lemming who has spent four years looking for a cliff – Donald Trump finally found one last week.
In an afternoon of madness, Mr Trump’s political stock in Washington turned to laughing stock. But after the Capitol’s death toll started including a serving police officer – nobody was smiling for long. There were the usual social media jibes - like Mexico now offering to pay for a wall – and Canada wanting one as well!
There was a Bill Clinton speech bubble that said, “Hell, I got impeached – and all I incited was a woman to attack my pants!”.
But when someone raised the spectre of Flight 93 on September 11 2001 – when 37 Americans died preventing a probable attack on the Capitol Building – even Donald Trump must have swallowed hard.
Suddenly, the man with the keys to the USA’s nuclear arsenal wasn’t trusted enough to have his own Twitter account!
Everyone seems to be agreeing that “He’s gotta pay for this!”. But typical of that weird but wonderful place called the US of A – no- one can agree how. Well, here’s how.
Forget impeachment or the 25th Amendment. The Republican party should simply boot him out now – and wait for the electorate to do the same next Wednesday.
On that subject, just exactly WHERE Donald Trump will be next Wednesday has inspired a whole bunch of theories. There are reports that Donald may want to return to his ancestral Scottish roots and seek refuge at Trump Turnberry.
Our leader, president Sturgeon, has already said that he would not be allowed to – quite literally – fly in the face of our strict Covid 19 travel restrictions. But the UK’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has hinted that there would be no Trump travel ban. The clever money’s on Patel. Boris Johnson wants to get off on the right foot with the new president Biden. And new president Biden would like nothing better than Donald Trump out of Washington - and out of the country - on his Inauguration Day. Not even Nicola is bigger than future Anglo – American relations! Wherever Donald Trump ends up – the one thing he will NOT be doing during Biden’s inauguration is playing golf.
Trumps gargantuan narcissism wouldn’t allow it.
He’ll be watching it all unfold on TV.
With “It Should Have Been Me” playing on his headphones!
The one thing he will NOT be doing during Biden’s inauguration is playing golf