Is Donald Trump Typical of America Today?
Wonders a far-removed Brit
I have very little experience of America and with Americans, so I do, genuinely, wonder if Trump is typical of his country.
I’ve also met very few folk from The States and don’t know whether or not they too are truly representative of their country.
I’ve never crossed the Atlantic, probably never will, though I would love to see the great sites I’ve been presented with on TV and in film for myself.
It is, of course, a matter of cost — my pension would, more than likely, not allow me to fly halfway around the planet.
In my seven decades, I have met very few Americans and got to know fewer.
There were a few stateside visitors when I was a student in London with whom I had the pleasure of socialising occasionally, though not enough to become friends or even acquaintances. I can’t now even remember from which part of the U.S. they came. They were just… Americans.
I did get to know the mother of one of my son's best friends whilst they were at school together. She was, if I remember properly, a Bostonian and married/partnered to/with a British man. She’d been in the U.K. for so long that she’d become almost completely Anglicised — only the last vestiges of her accent remained.
Other than these, the only American nationals I can remember meeting for long enough for me to form an opinion of them, and they of me, have been when on holiday/vacation elsewhere in Europe.
I’d shared a river cruise trip for just under a fortnight with I-can’t-remember-how-many-fellow-passengers that did include several travellers from different parts of the United States. I’d shared meals and evenings in the bar for long enough to form an opinion of their view of their homeland and mine. No doubt they’d done the same of me.
I remember an older lady, travelling alone, who told me of her ownership of a handgun that she wouldn’t hesitate to use if she, at any time, felt vulnerable and, in her words, ‘under threat’.
This included someone coming to her home at night unannounced.
She also described her handgun — the name of which I now can’t remember, other than it was an automatic weapon. It sounded like a cannon and I wondered how on Earth she could wield such a weapon.
This sort of stuff is way out of my experience, even imagination, and only went to highlight what we in Britain regard as utter madness when it comes to legal gun ownership.
I also had conversations with two couples who, on discovering I am atheist, said they were going to pray for me to ‘regain faith in God and Jesus’. These are probably not their exact words, but they do convey the meaning of their evident concern for my soul.
I was touched by their feelings that I might still be ‘saved’ but aware that, for the rest of the trip, I was treated as a Godless heathen.
I found it difficult to equate the ‘shoot/kill first, ask questions later’ attitude with the ‘believe in God and all sins will be forgiven’ of people who sat at the same dining table.
There were several other stateside citizens on the trip and my wife and I had lots of wonderful conversations with some most interesting people, not least one woman who was, by her own admission, ‘Doing Europe’ without her husband in tow! Read into that what you will!
Lord, could that lady drink!
I do have to admit to finding all of them engaging, friendly and interesting; they each had a life-story to tell, and they each told it very well!
Other than seeing a filtered version of America via TV and film, perhaps the most I get to see and hear of what America is comes via news feeds and reports. Recently, of course, most of this has been around the forthcoming U.S. elections. This has meant we here in G.B. get some insight into American politics — which is very different to ours.
I am aware that we get a shallow overview of the ocean that is the divide between Republicans and Democrats and, I daresay, it is somewhat sanitised and simplified for us.
One of the feelings I do get is of a sad and rapidly fading respect for Joe Biden as he became confused about his place in American politics and his physical condition only going to emphasise that.
Unfortunately for Donald Trump — even despite some of his outrageous comments about the world beyond America’s borders — is that he often comes over as ‘comedy gold’ for observers here in Britain.
As a result, Trump supporters seem to be a strange lot to us Brits. How they can possibly want a man with his track record representing them on the World Stage is beyond us! Which world leader would go on record describing other countries as ‘shitholes’?
A great deal has been written about Trump and his Republican Party supporters here on Medium and most, to me, seem to hold not a dissimilar view — some most vociferously.
I know I have a far from deep understanding of America and Americans. I would very much like to improve that, though I doubt it will be as a result of me visiting there.
At the moment, I’m content to read the American take on America here on Medium.
