Now is the right time to stand up and be counted

DONALD Trump is the elected leader of a very great nation.

America is a great ally of the United Kingdom and stood with us in the darkest hours and throughout the Cold War.

Many of Scotland’s most talented emigrants made their lives in the land of the free and we respect the people and the institutions that have made America great.

Donald Trump does not respect these institutions. His salute to liberty and freedom has been to have almost 2000 children forcefully removed from their parents at the Mexico-US border and imprisoned in cages.

The image of the child crying in the headlight beam of a border patrol vehicle while her mother is frisked is deliberate.

It evokes some of the darkest moments in US and European history – from the forced movement of indigenous American people on to reservations, through slavery, to the internment of Japanese American citizens during World War II.

The viewer will reel in repulsion. It will normalise so that the next level does not seem such a great leap.

Societies do not wake up one day to find themselves as authoritarian states.

Democratic values are undermined in stages and Trump’s politics of walls and fences are part of that.

His rhetoric of encouraging racists at home and taunting the rights and the dignity of women and ethnic minorities are steps on that path.

His dismissal of climate change, his pandering to tyrants that send assassins on to the streets of Britain, his trade wars against friend and foe are all part of that destabilisation to make him able to take advantage of the uncertainty he created.

The way Trump undermines the free and fair Press, his dangerous disrespect for the truth, the way he disrupts the global order without even grasping the rudiments of diplomacy all have that aim in mind.

Donald John Trump is the most dangerous and unsuitable holder of the office of president of the United States in more than 200 years.

But it is his politics, not his personality, that thousands will march against in Scotland this weekend.

Trump is a symbol of a wave of rightwing “populist” politicians who have scapegoated migrants, foreigners and demonised political opponents to divert attention away from the causes and problems that face the post-crash world.

While ordinary people have paid a high price for the mishandling of a globalised economy, many of those who created the mess have escaped blame.

They have been enriched by politicians who divided electorates by creating enmities where there had been none.

Trump is not the only one but he is the most powerful and most skilful one.

That is why Scotland should be united in its rejection of this abhorrent politician and all he stands for. We love America – but we don’t like The Donald.