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Tuesday 13 December 2016

215. Brexit Broke Britain, Trump Trashed America

     
I agree with Michael Moor but regardless of whether Trump finds a way to slough off the responsibility he never contemplated, the damage is done.

The Leave campaigners spewed out acid hyperbole, deliberate lies, vitriol, bigotry and xenophobia during the UK referendum campaign. Trump made the kinds of outrageous statements a psychotic toddler with developmental problems tripping on diesel fumes might make. Like the Leave campaigners, Trump didn’t think he’d have to follow up. He thought he could stir the shit and walk away. But if Brexit means Brexit thenTrump means Trump.

Unfortunately, even if he were to step away, that doesn’t mean the toxic Trump smog will clear. Like nuclear fallout, sometimes the after effects can be as problematic as the immediate disaster.

Here in the UK, the political establishment – and a proportion of the public – believe they are in control of the Brexit process. They think that we are in a period of decision and sorting out strategy – albeit one that should have taken place BEFORE the referendum. What they don’t seem to understand is that the boat has sailed, the horse has bolted, the tide has gone out, yada yada yada. And it happened the day after the referendum when the results hit with the devastation of a fractured nuclear facility.

The government continue selling Britain off to the highest bidder while the Leave campaign crow about reclaiming borders! The NHS creaks and groans under the weight of overpriced drugs, depressed citizens and the lack of foreign doctors and nurses on which it has always relied. Meanwhile, the bickering and arguing over minute detail (see last week’s blog) is so much chicken squawking after the fox has cleared the hen house. (Yes – you know how my analogies get tangled when I am upset).

In the last few days Trump did a rush job to try to save an air conditioning factory because he’d forgotten he’d promised that several times during his campaign. But a. most of the jobs were lost b. the government is now in hock for huge tax breaks for this firm which will have every other greedy corporation in America claiming they too are leaving so they can suck upTrump tax treats.

Here in the UK it is the same. Tata steel has been ‘saved’. (NB the remnants of the steel industry in Britain were screwed by the Tory government when it vetoed EU attempted protection against Chinese overproduction. Oh, the irony). But now the skeletal industry is ‘saved’ partly by ditching pension security for the remaining workforce. Recently a car firm in Sunderland was ‘reassured’ by May’s government that they would be ok if they stayed in the UK!!! I’d hazard a guess that this just means more unsustainable public funding diverted to private companies.

But the main damage to Britain and the United States of America, is in world standing. The wounds that won’t be healed any time soon are kudos and credibility. It’s like that guy at school who everyone grudgingly admired – albeit that they may not have liked him. Then he was photographed in a gutter covered in his own vomit with his ironed jeans round his ankles and his beer gut hanging over his stained women's panties.

Self-destruct personified did play out slightly differently on each side of the pond.

Think of Trump as the brain tumour – the single malignant growth that will nevertheless cause irreparable damage to the body of America. Britain suffered the sporadic reoccurring, sometimes hidden, malignant growths in multiple organs.

It will be a long long time before anyone takes Britain or America seriously again. And many countries around the globe that have been held in check by the idea of the greatness of the UK and the impenetrability of the US will have seen that the bloated stupid spiteful old Emperor is not wearing any clothes…


 Oh and, if you’re interested, the Guardian printed another of my Mrs Fed-up of Edinburgh letters


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