THIS week's community column is written by local minister, Rev Ian Miller.
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I WONDER how many column inches have been written about that divisive figure Donald Trump.
The US Presidential election was in the balance for days after the polls closed on November 3. But not for Donald. Within a few hours, he was clear, and he remains clear now: he won the election!
In the recent past Margaret Thatcher was a woman who was either admired or deplored. Boris Johnson is similar, though I suspect that for many there is some vestige of sympathy for a man clearly out of his depth and in the wrong job.
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I was staggered, however, to discover that 56 per cent of this country’s Conservative MPs supported Trump. I should not have been surprised because like Trump, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson and co have one thing in common: they have no conception how the vast majority of people live or even survive.
And sometimes I think they don’t even care. In passing, I even wonder how they would have coped in our state schools. They would have been out of place because they are out of place and out of touch with how the rest of us live.
Why do some British people not like Trump? My response: he lacks class. He manipulates facts. Truth seems irrelevant to him. He is not funny – well, he is in a sense, because we laugh at him. He is not wise. His statements border on the ridiculous. He lacks humility, compassion, even empathy and understanding. Maybe that would do for starters. I also think that he’s a bully, that he treats women poorly, and that he is racist.
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I’d better stop. Honestly I cannot find anything about the man that is endearing and I wish I could clearly say today that the world has seen the last of him.
John F. Kennedy had his flaws but he did come over as a predominantly decent man. Even Ronald Reagan had humanity. Washington never told a lie. Abraham Lincoln is still referred to today as Honest Abe. Barack Obama was, and is, a class act. And then Donald.
As a Christian, however, what I could never understand was how the evangelical churches in America seemed to back him. I can only presume that their politics meant more to them than their Christianity.
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