Tainant. Up to his usual tricks.
The Trump protests are more about therapy than politics.
Why Trump? What is it about him that so riles the liberal-left? This seems obvious, right? He’s anti-immigration, he’s crude, unbothered by climate change, an alleged ‘*****-grabber’, and
at least a bit racist. But as the
Trump baby blimp flies over Westminster today and thousands across the UK gear up to protest his visit, it is worth asking why his arrival has sparked such fury where others’ haven’t.
The Stop Trump Coalition, one of the main organisers of today’s ‘Carnival of Resistance’, highlight Trump’s brutal erstwhile border policy, whereby parents were separated from their children in detention centres. Protesters interviewed outside the US ambassador’s residence in Regent’s Park, where they were using pots, drums and vuvuzelas to
‘keep Trump awake’ last night, said it was the ‘caging kids’ that got them to turn out.
But what, then, about Obama? Despite his status as secular saint, he
deported more migrants than any of his predecessors. And he himself
kept kids in cages, albeit with their families rather than separated from them. Meanwhile, closer to home, the UK remains the only nation in Europe to operate indefinite detention for illegal migrants. The Windrush scandal – the harassment and deportation of British citizens – has sparked outrage, but it but it hasn’t sparked nationwide protests.
Days of middle-class rage