Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
So how’s that Nobel Peace Prize for pal Trump looking now?
I’D like to say a big thank you to the bearded guy in the Camp Auschwitz hoodie who was photographed sacking the seat of American power this week.
Because he, and the rest of the madeyed, far-right posse, backed up something I wrote a few months ago: That Donald Trump was looking increasingly like Adolf Hitler in his final days.
There he sat, paranoid, in his Washington bunker, denying reality while sycophants pretended all was well. The big difference, I argued, was that Trump would never take a cyanide pill as he was too cowardly. Say what you like about Hitler but he didn’t try to get out of World War One by claiming he had “heel spurs”.
When he incited that mob in Washington to attempt to d e st r o y d e mo c ra c y by pandering to their basest prejudices, the Hitler parallels stood up. As Germany’s Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, said , watching it unfold: “Seditious words turn to violent actions – on the steps of the Reichstag, and now in the Capitol.”
It’s something most sane people feared from the day he was sworn in and spent hours in front of his TV raging at comments about th e smallness of his inauguration crowd. Then ordered his staff to doctor photographs to prove his audience was bigger than Barack Obama’s.
It signposted a war against anyone who refused to buy into his cult of narcissism. All non-believers were dismissed as fake news peddlers, Marxists or deep-state enemies, as he drugged his followers with lies and conspiracy theories. What we saw on
Wednesday night in Washington was merely the culmination of his deliberate play to far-right groups, everyday racists and the not very bright that he would make America Great Again.
With ‘ Great’ being an unsubtle codename for ‘White’.
But if he was so dangerous, why did the major figures in successive British administrations not see it? And if they did, why did they pander like the worst kind of 1930s app easers t o a n o u t - of - c o n t ro l monster sowing g division and hate?
It’s yet another er indictment on these recent gutless s Tory governments. Remember Theresa eresa May holding his hand i n Washington hington , and promising a full ll state visit soon after he was elected, when he was openly demeaning ing her to anyone who listened?
Mi c h a e l Gove G o v e grovelling to him im in Trump Tower, Jacob Rees-mogg saying ing he would definitely ly vote for him if he were re American and Boris Johnson demanding he be given the Nobel Peace Prize. This despite the object of their f lattery mocking their incompetence over Brexit and publicly claiming the NHS was broke and London had become a racist hellhole.
While the leaders of Canada, France and Germany stood up to him, ours cowered before him. When Jeremy Corbyn snubbed an invite to the state banquet thrown for Trump, a bucket of right-wing bile was poured on him.
All because he promised Britain a “phenomenal” free trade deal he was never able to deliver, and the nation was left so marginalised by Brexit its leaders were prepared to go along with Ni g e l Fa ra g e’s b e l i e f that this demented, racist bully was our greatest future hope.
We’re being told that the last time Capitol Hill was stormed it was by the British in 1814.
I hope the British appeasers who cowered before Trump more recently feel a small bit of shame about the re- re-storming. storming.
Parallels with Hitler here, but Trump is too cowardly to take cyanide