These protests aren't just about Trump, they're about everything he stands for
Trumpism is an assault on women, minorities, the climate emergency, and now the NHS. And it is alive and well in Britain
Enough of the Donald Trump clown show. Too much of the critique of the US incumbent focuses on his vulgarity, his outrageousness, his supposed demeaning of his office, because being presidential traditionally means observing social norms while raining missiles on black and brown people in foreign climes. From the moment the Trump phenomenon became a “have you heard what he just said?!” circus, from the Republican primaries to the presidential election onwards, it served his purpose: it allowed him to frame the debate, such as it is, on his own terms.
When protesters gather in Trafalgar Square on Tuesday, their placards will of course be full of righteous anger over Trump’s record. The “pussy grabbing” misogynist, the man who described neo-Nazis and white supremacists as “fine people”, who retweeted the anti-Muslim propaganda of a British far-right organisation, who called for a ban on Muslims entering the US and then imposed it to the degree the law allowed, who separated children from their parents at the border. But the protests will not simply focus on Trump, the man, but rather on what Trump represents.
The far right – directly emboldened and legitimised by Trump – is on the ascendancy from Brazil to Hungary, Spain to Sweden. In our country, the hard-right Brexit party is on the rise: Ann Widdecombe, one of their leading lights, this weekend suggested that “science may produce an answer” to being gay, underlining how this political force threatens to reopen debates about the rights of minorities which were supposedly settled long ago. The anti-Muslim bigotry so vulgarly displayed by Trump is on the rise across the western world: in our own country, the Tories are infested with Islamophobia, and much of our media promote and incite it.
Trump’s administration has led a full-frontal assault on trans people, from banning trans soldiers from serving, to attempting to define trans people out of existence. But let’s not pretend that anti-trans bigotry isn’t rampant in the British media: it has even been indulged even in supposedly liberal media.
A possible war with Iran beckons: in a fateful echo of the calamitous invasion of Iraq, the risk of British involvement is clearly high. The British government has stood along the US presidency in backing and arming the Saudi dictatorship to the teeth as it rains bombs on Yemen, plunging the country into the worst humanitarian crisis on Earth. A climate emergency – worsened by Trump pulling the US, the biggest polluter in human history, out of the Paris agreement – threatens us all, but that doesn’t mean Britain should not be taking far more radical action.
Protest and pageantry: Donald Trump's state visit, day one – in pictures
There are direct and immediate dangers, of course. The US ambassador made it clear that a trade deal would put our NHS on the block, to be chopped up and fed to hungry, circling US multinationals. Under our own Trump – and the president has anointed his mini-me, Boris Johnson, as May’s successor – a no deal threatens to reduce Britain to a vassal of the US, with workers’ and consumers’ rights and environmental protections tossed on a bonfire.
These protests won’t simply be about Trump and the perverse reality TV show he’s treated the world to ever since he fatefully declared for the presidency. The protests will be about Trumpism: about confronting a resurgent global far right, defending the rights of women and minorities, fighting the climate emergency, opposing the threat of war, and standing against an attempt to gut the NHS and trash hard-won rights and freedoms. Trump will have left our shores by Wednesday: sadly, our own Trumpism will remain and, in the coming months, we must continue to fight it.
• Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/03/donald-trump-women-minorities-climate-nhs
