I might sound a bit smug here, but from a British perspective, it would be easy to look down on the Trump phenomenon, and say it couldn’t happen here. The British, I suspect, would be unlikely to be impressed by a fake-tanned, gleamy toothed, supermodel-on-arm celebrity as potential leader. A British candidate styled that way would not get anywhere. But then maybe there would be a way! Any candidate for the British premiership who happened to be, say, a sociopathic, narcissistic oddball could easily put on a politically correct turn of phrase and a sober suit. It is not often that we get to know who our leaders really are - at least not until it is too late. At least the American electorate know what they are getting.
It just shows the difference between the two cultures when an electoral candidate who claims that he is too smart to pay tax is still in the running. Brits get a bit uppity about coffee shops like Starbucks using corporate wizardry to avoid paying UK taxes, while local coffee shops in the same street have to pay theirs. Maybe it is the famed British sense of fair play, but a boast like Trump’s in the UK would mean automatic electoral defeat. And that is without going anywhere near the alleged sexual misbehaviour.
And what is so wrong with Hillary? From this side of the pond, it is hard to see what all the fuss is about. OK, she doesn’t come over as being very warm, cuddly and media friendly, and she was a bit incautious about which email server she used, but that sounds like a bit of a misdemeanour, in the way that shoving your hand up women’s dresses isn’t.
Whatever happens on November 8th America will have made history. They will either have the first woman president, or the first orange one.
Peter D Fisher 