As much as I hate (present tense, my hatred, in this instance, doesn’t die with the object of my odium) Margaret Thatcher, I never thought that she was a traitor. I thought her policies were misguided to the point of perversity, and I believe that she changed British society for the worse in virtually everything she did, but I do not believe for a moment that she was actively and consciously working against Britain.
Whereas with Trump . . .
The refusal to implement the cross-party sanctions against Russia are scandalous. What does that man have to do before most of the country recognizes that virtually everything he does and says shows a deep and unthinking rejection of what the United States of America used to stand for.
It is obvious that Trump finds the company of autocratic, undemocratic, dictators far more congenial than any normal western political leaders. He has shown scant regard for any of the norms that used to govern political behaviour. He is the most openly corrupt president that the United States has ever had, and there are quite a few choice specimens of human depravity that have occupied the post before Trump. But any person who makes Nixon, Regan and Bush (of either variety) seem like the sort of reasonable people that you would welcome to your dinner table for an enjoyable and informative evening, has got to be a bad thing.
Trump is a pathological liar, a dyed in the wool narcissist, a convicted felon, a convicted sex pest, a bigot, a sexist, a homophobe, a bully, and someone who helped incite, though his deranged denial of the results of the election, an assault on the Capitol, the centre of democratic institution of government. What else does he have to do to demonstrate to his deranged MAGA base his complete unsuitability for his position and, more importantly to illustrate his lack of loyalty to the country he is bleeding dry.
I was too young, being a Baby Boomer to appreciate the irreversible change in fortune that World War Two was for Britain. We kept trailing clouds of past colonial glory throughout my early years, we still had a seat on the Security Council of the UN, we had an independent (sic) nuclear deterrent, swathes of world maps were still coloured pink, we had a voice on the world stage, but as a world power we were hollowed out, and the Suez Crisis illustrated that clearly.
The ability of Britain to act in defiance of the world and especially of the USA, that illusion was gone. In the years since Suez the British have had to come to terms with the fact that we are not a world power and the even our erstwhile ally the USA is now an unreliable partner, and, after what the rogue president Trump has shown, no president will be seen in quite the same way again.
A traitor, not only to his own country, but also to the Western Alliance, and to the World.
