By Oliver Ward
The migrant crisis which has dominated the European press this week has brought to light some exceptional examples of human generosity and kindness. From the individuals who brought food and blankets to those in Budapest, to countless numbers who have volunteered their spare beds to those in need. It has demonstrated that despite the European political scene, when its needed, individuals are always forthcoming to help other individuals in need.
Which makes it all the more distressing to read the news coming from across the Atlantic. Donald Trump and Sarah Palin have been making headlines for their decidedly different stance to immigration. When Trump announced his decision to run for the GOP presidential nomination on June 16th- an affair complete with grand escalators, rock music and his trademark combed hair, nobody in Britain could really imagine anybody would vote for such a bumbling blonde oaf with a substantial personality to guise insubstantial policies.
Policies such as erecting a wall across the length of the Mexican border to keep out Mexican “rapists”. Whats that? A mammoth wall to rival Hadrian’s would come at a considerable worry to the American taxpayer? Not at all- he would coerce the Mexican government to pay. He promises to “make America great again” but his policy evidently pulls America apart. He has pledged to put an end to automatic citizenship for all those born in the States and engage in the largest deportation in America’s ‘great’ history.
Modern America has no place for Trump- there is a black president, there are more Spanish speakers in the United States than in Spain, Jeb Bush has spoken Spanish on his campaign to appeal to Hispanic voters. However, two thirds of Republicans in America see immigration as a serious problem, and for them Trump is legitimizing their beliefs. Jorge Ramos, the “Walter Cronkite of Latin America” represents modern society in America. He is the news anchor of Univision. He arrived at a news conference, did his job and confronted Trump about his immigration policies, Trump tried to out-alpha-male him, his hair making him look more like Paris Hilton’s puppy than alpha-male, failed then had Ramos ejected. Then a couple of Trump’s goons gave him a mouthful of “get out of my country” (Ramos is a US citizen). But this demonstrates what Trumps America would look like. A police force and army akin to Oswald Mosely’s blackshirts running around middle America bundling anybody speaking in foreign tongues into the back of cattle trucks and heading to the border as fast as the Ford engine could get them there.
Sarah Palin echoed Trumps assertions in a CNN interview on Saturday, adding that immigrants in the USA had better “speak American”, a language I am yet to see taught in any language school on the planet. Policy substance is no substitute for charisma and fame and America could do well to remember that going into 2016, if not the winter is certainly coming, and I for one would want to be south of “the wall” when Trump forces Peña Nieto to build it with his bare hands under pain of torture.