Sunday 6 November 2016

Few conservatives in England want Trump to win

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A lot of Americans who like Donald Trump assume that British people who voted for Brexit also want Mr. Trump to win. In fact this is not so. 

According to a Gallup polls of 32 countries, 15% of British voters want Mr. Trump to win, 64% want Mrs Clinton and 21% don't know. I am told most committed UKIP supporters want Donald Trump to win but UKIP polls around 6% of the British electorate. Most people who voted for Brexit therefore do not want Mr. Trump. 

I live in Romania but I know that to most Britons he seems terrifying. We rarely respect American presidents because they are so different from our leading politicians, for many reasons to do with very different cultures and to do with our parliamentary system. Kennedy, George H W Bush, Obama and Romney were the sort of men who at a stretch seemed imaginable as British Prime Ministers - possibly Clinton and more easily Gore. The perpetually grinning Carter, Reagan the B-film actor, Pat Buchanan, George W Bush, Cruz, Ben Carson and Donald Trump certainly did or do not. 

This is partly about style and in Mr. Trump's case the looseness of what he says
and fondness for deliberate exaggeration. It's about what seemed to be a joke about Megyn Kelly menstruating (I acquit him of intending a double entendre - honi soit qui mal y pense). But style segues into substantial things, like his expressed relish for torture. Many Britons, I imagine, feel squeamishness about the anti-illegal immigration rhetoric. Britain has become extremely PC.

One can imagine Hillary as a British or European politician, either of the moderate left or moderate right (the two are almost interchangeable). She is Angela Merkel, without her great political savvy.

So little have policies been discussed in this election that I only now saw a list of things that Hillary might do in her first 100 days, assuming she wins. I don't like the sound of any of them, except spending money on roads.

Lord (Conrad) Black thinks Mr. Trump will bring new ideas and certainly Hillary will not. Mr. Trump might be surprisingly successful - or might be disastrous - there  is no way of knowing. But a victory for Trump would prove that America had lost confidence in itself. 

A victory for Mrs. Clinton would be broadly a victory for more of the same, more globalism, succouring illegal immigrants, green policies, feminism and political correctness but a more anti-Russian policy and probably idealistic wars. A European, Christian or Social Democratic future, plus war.


2 comments:

  1. I am still undecided. Don't think Trump is remotely suitable for the job, but has raised important issues. Hillary is qualified but dangerous and unimpressive besides. Probably, reluctantly, I'd vote Hillary were I a US citizen. And pray for her impeachment. Perhaps.
    Dom

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  2. It's more the type of choice one might expect in s Presidential election in Romania (eg Tudor v Ilescu). I fear Trump would greatly degrade standards of public life more than HC would
    Base greed vs gilded greed, maybe.

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