The Guardian
view on Donald Trump: bullies never respect sycophants
Editorial
Stop the state visit. Britain should not allow the US president’s racism
to be dressed up in pageantry
Thursday 30
November 2017 20.16 GMT Last modified on Thursday 30 November 2017 22.00 GMT
All
relationships have boundaries. Those between nations can be particularly
fraught, freighted with ties forged in history and culture. In diplomacy the
manners, customs and morals of others need to be acknowledged and respected.
But humanity begins with acts, not just with thoughts. The question is how to
deal with a man like Donald Trump, a taunting braggart with a weakness for
flattery? The stakes are high: when nations fall out, people get hurt. By using
social media as a flame-thrower, Mr Trump uses words as weapons. He does not
care who gets burned.
In
retweeting anti-Muslim video clips promoted by a leader of a far-right fringe
group in Britain and then rounding on the prime minister for reproaching him,
Mr Trump proves again that he panders to bigots and is no friend of this
country. This is an important – and dangerous – moment for Britain as it
launches itself into the choppy waters of Brexit. The vain hope of politicians
who pushed for this nation’s exit from the European Union was that we could
hitch ourselves to the United States.
True, the
US is Britain’s most important partner on the global stage. As nations we have
a sense of shared values and a long history together. Both have worked to
uphold the international rules-based system. After the end of the cold war it
was a partnership, along with others, that guaranteed a short period of
relative peace. What was not taken sufficiently into account was that this was
not only a physical equilibrium but also a moral one.
Mr Trump
has few morals. He is a thuggish narcissist who is no respecter of Britain’s
national security and wellbeing. After the London Bridge attack in June, he
went after the capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, for urging, quite reasonably, calm.
He attacked Scotland Yard, in September, for not being “proactive” after a
terrorist bomb failed to detonate in London. Then, as now, Theresa May rebuked
the US president. It was the right thing to do. The prime minister should go
further and withdraw the invitation for a state visit. Bullies never respect
sycophants. Britain should not allow Mr Trump’s racism to be dressed up in
pageantry. Mr Trump’s strategy is to stoke a climate of paranoia, both at home and
abroad. He seeks advantage in the politics of division and hate. He operates by
instinct rather than sober analysis.
The truth
is that Mr Trump has no respect for the basic rights that are the foundation of
democracy. Nor does he care for the decency necessary to sustain citizenship.
Democracy cannot survive without letting reasonable debate bring the truth to
light. Instead Mr Trump appears to have nothing but contempt for our
intelligence. For the US president the show is all about one man. His secretary
of state, Rex Tillerson, looks set to be replaced by a cheerleader for
Trumpism. Mr Tillerson’s error was to realise what everyone suspects: his boss
was, in his own reported words, a “moron”.
As a former
British prime minister wisely noted, “nations have no permanent friends or
allies, they only have permanent interests”. Britain must have a relationship
with the United States, just as we have relationships with unsavoury regimes
which are tempered by the understanding that we do not share their scruples.
Our own foolishness means that we are no longer useful as a bridge to Europe.
The longer
Mr Trump is in office, the more America’s folkways will become unfamiliar to
Britain. Like all relationships, Britain and America’s will experience rocky
times. We are living through one of them. With Mr Trump in the White House the
US has become flighty when it comes to “special” relationships, heaping praise
on America’s adversaries and downgrading ties with allies. To be credible our
bond needs to be grounded in self-respect. Speaking the truth may be difficult,
but that is what friends are for.
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