WhichWelsh university would give Donald Trump a degree?
COLUMNIST
IF A university marketing department is (a) turning green with envy at the global attention Swansea has won by handing Hillary Clinton an honorary degree, (b) embraces the principle there’s no such thing as bad publicity and (c) positively welcomes the idea of triggering a student uprising, it could invite President Trump to its next graduation ceremony.
It was a public relations triumph for Swansea University to have Ms Clinton collect her degree just as we approach the first anniversary of the unforgettable election night in which the world learned that – although she won the most votes – thanks to complexities of the electoral college Donald Trump would be heading to the White House.
Millions of people who still turn to the West Wing boxset for solace and inspiration would much rather it was Ms Clinton who had won the use of Air Force One as a private jet.
Her visit to Wales gave us a glimpse of a parallel universe in which she is the world’s most powerful person, not a property billionaire-turned-reality star who spent years encouraging speculation about Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
We had the chance to imagine that she and not Mr Trump would make tough calls on issues as vexing as the nuclear futures of North Korea and Iran and a possible post-Brexit trade deal with us. Swansea can hope that the link with Ms Clinton will boost its success in the battle for international students. The university showed no sign of worrying about offending Republicans when it renamed its College of Law the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law.
Wales has many other higher education institutions which would love a slice of this superpower action. It would come as no surprise if a college has already offered to rename its politics department the Barack Obama Centre for Modern Progress in return for a visit by the ex-President some time in the next decade.
Heck, it might be worth getting in touch with Jimmy Carter. He is a Dylan Thomas aficionado who also loves Wales for its angling opportunities; he could receive an honorary degree for literature or something to do with fish.
If a PR officer were to send off an email to the White House asking if Mr Trump is interested in swinging by Wales to pick up a degree, there is a chance he might give this more than a second’s thought.
It’s reported that his planned visit in 2018 has been shorn of pomp and ceremony. The threat of mass protests may be a key reason why officials are understood to be discussing a “working visit”.
Mr Trump has a fondness for bling – as demonstrated in his interior design tastes – and also loves public speaking. The opportunity to put on a colourful university robe and jump behind a podium might prove irresistible.
It would certainly put the university on the world academic map, but any gains might well be outweighed by the inevitable ructions.
Yes, there’s the chance he might write a cheque for the landscaping of a golf course, and he could make return visits to see how students are doing at the Donald Trump School of Hotel Management and Populist Diplomacy. The university could become the go-to destination for young Trump fans who want to study abroad but believe most colleges are home to elitist academics who think the best way to neutralise the threat posed by Kim Jong-un is to chew muesli really hard.
But the risks are legion. It’s quite possible that most Welsh students would boycott the ceremony and instead throw tomatoes at his motorcade.
Professors who regard his policies as an abomination might stage a mass resignation. The university would look quite craven – especially as Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University has revoked the honorary degree it gave him back in 2010.
The fact that it’s almost unimaginable that even the most cashstrapped college would consider welcoming a sitting president illustrates the toxicity attached to the present occupant of the Oval Office.
Welsh MPs were among some of the loudest voices who were adamant that he should not get to address parliamentarians in Westminster Hall.
There would have been plenty of protesters if former Republican presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush won honorary degrees, but many institutions would take pride in hosting such statesmen of such influence.
Many thousands of academics and students would love to net a selfie with Bill or Hillary, or Hay-on-Wye veterans Al Gore or Bernie Sanders if they make return visits to Wales.
And there are doubtless a few who would like to put a picture on Facebook of them standing beside The Donald giving the iconic thumbs-up but this is probably a minority aspiration.
Nonetheless, millions of Americans in critical heartland seats put their faith in him as the man who could restore opportunity to their communities.
Ms Clinton is now promoting a book in which she tries to explain why so many of her fellow citizens voted for Mr Trump and not her when presented with a straight choice last year. She has clearly spent much of the past year trying to make sense of this herself.
As Andrew Marr put it to her on his Sunday show: “[It’s] not just that you lost to a sophisticated, wellorganised, traditional Republican, you lost to a television game show man who had nevertheless found a way to get to the White House that you had not spotted.”
Some of Trump’s supporters backed him because they admire his vision for a wall along the border with Mexico or support other policies which would be denounced as odious if articulated in the House of Commons. Ms Clinton famously said while on the campaign trail that “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables”.
But other Trump backers feared that a Clinton White House would be a disaster for what’s left of coalmining.
Mr Trump’s promise to create manufacturing jobs was sweet to the ears of blue collar workers who long for an industrial renaissance.
He tapped into a reservoir of discontent and fear that Ms Clinton’s party needs to address if it is to have a chance of winning the presidency in 2020.
Mr Trump may not be the dream dinner party guest of many people in Wales but a Welsh university would be providing a valuable service if it invited him for a rigorous public interview about how he intends to use his time in office and the terrifying powers at his disposal.
He will likely shape all of our lives during what’s left of his presidency.
He represents a phenomenon that needs to be understood.