Whether you like it or not, Donald Trump has his moments – you can't help admire how gallus he is

Scottish Sun

2 days ago

A FEW days of Donald Trump all up in your grill and it becomes easier to see why so many Americans have bought into him.
The guy was on transmit from the moment he touched down here to visit his two Scottish golf courses until the moment he left.
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If you tune in long enough, Trump will eventually say something you agree with.
Credit: AFP
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You can't help but admire how gallus he is, writes Bill Leckie
Credit: Getty
And the fact is that if you tune in long enough, he'll eventually say something you agree with.
Sure, you'll have to wade through a morass of childish nonsense to get there.
And, yes, chances are it'll be something that bears no relation to the actual subject he's meant to be talking about.
But just as a 36-handicap golfer might one day get a hole in one, so Trump has his moments that you find yourself agreeing with, whether you want to or not.
Try walking the walk, Nic
WEE Nicola says women politicians need to support each other more to combat the levels of abuse highlighted in a new report on gender inequality in politics.
You know, the way she reacted to former Prime Minister Theresa May's coughing fit at a Tory conference by turning up on an SNP platform laughing and waving a packet of Strepsils.
So, when your electorate has the attention span of an elderly goldfish, and when he repeats so much of what he says in social media snippets . . . well, no wonder he's become a master of the kind of soundbite that sways polls.
It's not a healthy way for politics to go. It's the death of reasoned debate at the knifepoint of arrogant bluster.
He remains the embodiment of the belief that the longer and louder you keep telling a lie, the quicker it becomes accepted as the truth.
It's easy from a pond's width to wonder how someone this transparent has managed to con the world's biggest democracy not once, but twice.
Then you see him in action on your own doorstep.
And for all that it doesn't make him any less dislike- able, you can't help but admire how gallus he is.
Donald Trump hits first ever shot at opening of new Trump North Sea links golf course
Busybodies don't give us weather warnings… they give us stupidity warnings
AS I write this, it's blowing a gale, but the rain's just stopped and the sun's come out.
No, scrub that – it WAS sunny until halfway through that sentence, then it went back to being battleship grey overhead. And now, 40-odd words in, it's ­hosing down again.
In other words, just another Scottish day of four seasons in the blink of an eye.
The kind of day when we all used to live by the words of Billy Connolly that there's no such thing as bad ­weather, only the wrong clothes.
The kind of day, sadly, that no longer exists now we've been brainwashed into believing the world's about to end just because it's a little big windier or wetter or hotter than it's meant to be.
Welcome to the era of the Weather Event, when anything above a little bit blowy needs to be called a storm and when storms need to be given names.
Which is when the problems REALLY start.
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Welcome to the era of the Weather Event, when anything above a little bit blowy needs to be called a storm
Credit: Reuters
See, the human brain is brilliant at dealing with everyday stuff that it keeps in its filing cabinets, stuff so normal that it becomes second nature — and in this dreich-ish little country where we live, nothing becomes more second nature-ish than dealing with the climate.
Example? You look outside, it's bright and sunny. You go outside and it's deceptively Baltic. You go back in and get a jumper.
It's simple as that, Or, at least, it used to be.
But now? Suddenly we're losing our minds about something this basic; or, maybe more accurately, the forecasters and the government and all sorts of other busybodies are hell-bent on trying to MAKE us lose our minds.
For instance, first thing yesterday there was a statement issued by a guy called Jim Dale from an organisation called British Weather Services which read: 'Remember, this is summertime — and a Bank Holiday in Scotland — so some 'summer articles' in gardens and on beaches are going to be there; slides, picnic tables, swings, all ready to by thrown around by the wind.
'That's the danger we've got at the moment. These ­warnings are put out for very good reason.
'If you're venturing out, keep away from the forest and keep away from the coastal plain where the sea will be coming in.'
Next thing, ScotRail was putting out an appeal for us to 'secure garden furniture, trampolines and tents' so they don't 'blow onto the tracks'.
I'm sorry, but these aren't weather warnings.
They're STUPIDITY warnings.
The perfect example of organisations nannying the life out of us, making out that we're incapable of calculating the simplest decisions that dictate our own comfort and safety.
And you know what?
Anyone who really is stupid enough to NEED advice like this probably deserves to become a victim of natural selection anyway.
If that sounds harsh, good. Because I'm sick of this concept that we need our hand held over so many things as our brain — the most phenomenally-complex and brilliant computer that will ever exist — is somehow considered incapable of understanding what's good and bad for our health.
We see it in dumb-as-a-stone food packaging, like the packet of couscous I bought the other day with a picture on the front of a bowl of couscous and the words 'serving suggestion'.
We see it in trigger warnings at the start of TV shows made in the Seventies and Eighties which apparently may contain content that doesn't align with how we see things in 2025.
We hear it in the pointless apologies from telly and radio sports commentators when an effects microphone picks up some 'bad' language.
That one really gets me. I mean, is it really anything we don't hear every day? Can we not make our own minds up about whether we approve or disapprove, about whether or not we want to tut and switch off?
Plus, where's the sense in apologising for something that the commentator isn't responsible for?
It's all part of this idiotic, scared-of-their-own-shadows attitude that's sweeping through society and which looms over us darker than ever whenever one of these 'weather events' comes around.
This isn't to say that Storm Whatever-They-Called-It didn't cause a lot of people some inconvenience, that it didn't disrupt travel or force events to be cancelled or leave damage in its wake. All I'm saying is that this is what the weather's always done, right back to the dawn of time.
And that not only have we always survived, but we've learned from it and developed new and better ways of coping.
You just wouldn't think so from the way we're mollycoddled through this sort of — and I'm a little sick in my mouth even writing the word — crisis.
We're resilient, us humans. Most of us want to get to work no matter what, to push ahead with our leisure plans, to keep the world turning.
And 99.999 per cent of us tend not to play frisbee with trampolines near railway lines.
But whereas throughout history it's been down to the other 0.001 per cent of the population to either learn NOT to do stupid things or suffer the consequences, today we're all judged by their lack of basic common sense.
Anyway, I'm away for the messages now. In shorts, a parka, flip-flops and a balaclava.
Because it's great being Scottish. And a little bit mental.