I grew up believing that—despite the suitability or not of the occupant—one should respect the office of a Prime Minister or President.
But when it comes to the current occupant of the Oval Office, POTUS #47, that’s a hard maxim to follow.
Why? Well, from my perspective (I’m neither a US citizen nor resident), Donald Trump has shown, by his behaviour since his inauguration just four weeks ago, that he himself does not respect the Office of the President of the United States. Furthermore, he continues to be egregiously offensive to long-term allies or individuals. Take, for example, his denigration of the Prime Minister of Canada as ‘Governor Trudeau’. Decidedly un-presidential!
He was bad enough during his first term as POTUS #45. Then he was just a ridiculous moron. Now he’s a ruthless iconoclastic moron, surrounded by acolytes determined to fundamentally change American society—and not for the better.
In less than four weeks he has wreaked havoc on government departments and agencies (too many to recount here¹) and reset US relationships with allies (and foes).
And he unleashed mad dogs in the form of Elon Musk and his cohort of employees from the so-called ‘Department for Government Efficiency’ (DOGE) with, it seems, carte blanche authority to do whatever he pleases.
There’s something particularly obscene in the world’s richest man taking decisions that will impoverish millions (if not billions) of people worldwide.
Notwithstanding also Trump’s cabinet appointments like Robert Kennedy Jr at Health, or Pete Hegseth at Defense and others (often billionaires) who, on the face of it, are remarkably unqualified to occupy those positions.
Do his MAGA supporters rejoice? Probably so far. Wait until the cuts begin to bite for ordinary Americans.
An ineffective Republican Party refuses to stand up to Trump. Instead of holding the Executive to account—one of the principal roles of Congress—lily-livered Republicans just say ‘How high, Mr President?‘ when Trump says ‘Jump!‘
The blatantly illegal actions he has already taken through a mountain of Executive Orders are being challenged in the courts. But will Trump obey court orders? It seems not, if we take him at his word in a comment posted on 15 February on Truth Social. What a dangerous attitude and precedent!
During his first term, 2017-2021, I wrote quite a number of blogs decrying Trump and all he stood for. Just click on the red boxes to open these stories.
With regard to that last post, I certainly got it wrong – as did many others. This was written just a month before Trump’s attempted insurrection on 6 January 2021. We thought we’d seen the last of him. How wrong we were.
In writing this story, I broke a promise to myself. How’s that? Well, once it became apparent that Trump was headed for an election victory last November, I vowed I wouldn’t post anything on my blog as I had before. But it has been such a whirlwind of bad news since 20 January, I just couldn’t help myself. This cartoon (which I saw on BlueSky) sums up how I feel about the whole situation.
Were it not for the fact that our elder daughter and family live in Minnesota (who we will visit later this year as we have done regularly over the past 15 years, apart from the Covid years), I think I’d give the USA a wide berth over the next four years. Having said that, Steph and I have encountered friendliness and courtesy everywhere we have traveled around that country. Will that have changed as attitudes and positions, for and against Trump, become increasingly polarised?
A last comment. My car lease contract (on a Ford Kuga diesel) terminates in less than a year, and I will certainly take out another lease on a new car, more than likely an EV this time. One thing’s for certain: it WON’T be a Tesla!
¹ Here are some examples:
A balanced diet . . . 