@lemondrop saidUnfair!
Trump has around 40 per cent support among voters
just curious what his support on this site is
thumb up if you like him
down if you don't
What percentage of Trump supporters can play chess?
(Come to think of it how many can read & write?)
@wolfgang59 saidHmmmm...Something to think about!
Unfair!
What percentage of Trump supporters can play chess?
(Come to think of it how many can read & write?)
-VR
@lemondrop
Someone on Quora asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote this magnificent response.
A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
* You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
'My God… what… have… I… created?
@lemondropExcellent.
Someone on Quora asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?"
There are not enough thumbs in the world!
@pianoman1 saidI saw this quote a while ago and enjoyed it, thanks for the reminder.
@lemondrop
Someone on Quora asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote this magnificent response.
A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wi ...[text shortened]... in would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
'My God… what… have… I… created?
By the way Dr Frankenstein never said that quote (was it a quote) not in the original book, where he wasn’t a doctor btw, nor in any of the films.
@pianoman1 saidGood post.
@lemondrop
Someone on Quora asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote this magnificent response.
A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wi ...[text shortened]... in would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
'My God… what… have… I… created?
Deep down, Trump is shallow. Trump is crude, the exact opposite of refined. Trump is pettiness personified, with the volume cranked up to eleven. Yes, he is a walking lexicon of character flaws. I guess one can’t really blame a man for having neither depth nor principles. The question remains, however, how such a man can get into the Oval Office.
There are a couple of items of Trump’s character not mentioned in the article quoted: Trump is angry, and he’s a complainer, and he’s possessed by a sense of manic do-something-about-it-ism. This struck a chord in the American public; many people share that feeling but feel powerless to do anything on a grand enough scale; Trump tapped into it, probably more instinctively than consciously, and he has the delusion of grandeur to project himself as the man who’s going to fix what’s broken. It is essential to understand this in order to understand how he got where he is today. (Coupled with the peculiarity of the American electoral college system of ‘electing’ presidents.)
@moonbus saidI can't see you getting too many disagreements on that statement! 😉
Good post.
Deep down, Trump is shallow. Trump is crude, the exact opposite of refined. Trump is pettiness personified, with the volume cranked up to eleven. Yes, he is a walking lexicon of character flaws. I guess one can’t really blame a man for having neither depth nor principles. The question remains, however, how such a man can get into the Oval Office.
There ...[text shortened]... y. (Coupled with the peculiarity of the American electoral college system of ‘electing’ presidents.)
-VR
@lemondrop saidAs of now 6/19 or 31.5 % that means Trump supporters are indeed underrepresented on the GF 😉
Trump has around 40 per cent support among voters
just curious what his support on this site is
thumb up if you like him
down if you don't
@ponderable saidPerhaps that percentage comes from those who are not from the U.S.A. and don't really care one way or the other! 😉
As of now 6/19 or 31.5 % that means Trump supporters are indeed underrepresented on the GF 😉
-VR
@pianoman1 saidDamn, get a room.
@lemondrop
Someone on Quora asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote this magnificent response.
A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wi ...[text shortened]... in would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
'My God… what… have… I… created?
