If we were talking about any other Presidential candidate this would barely be a blip on the radar. Early voting is well underway and by now probably over 70 million votes have been cast. Election day itself is only a few days away. Most candidates would be totally focused on making as many visits to swing states as they can. However Donald Trump isn’t most candidates. He is the most thin-skinned, easily offended Presidential candidate in history. ANY insult or slight evokes his wrath. Add to that the fact Trump is such an avid golfer, that Scotland is where golf was invented AND the fact he’s (over) spent a fortune acquiring iconic golfing venues there (and losing money running them) the fact Scots can’t stand him sticks in his craw.
In case you didn’t know the term of insult “shitgibbon” or “orange shitgibbon” became known in the U.S. because everyday Scots tagged Trump with the term. (it has an interesting etymology) Now, the country’s First Minister has gone and endorsed Kamala Harris for President!
Take a wild guess on what’s on Trump’s mind tonight. I’ve got my money (admittedly not much) it’s on how to “get” John Swinney and Scotland for this. Keep in mind how much Trump promotes himself as a great golfer. Of course it’s easy to have a low handicap when you cheat like hell which Trump is famous for doing. But he’s got a LOT of money tied up in Scotland with his golf properties. Money of questionable origin I might add but authorities there have been hesitant to start digging. It helps that old, moneyed Brits that are conservative and hold enormous sway behind the scenes want a return of their own politics to long ago days of elite rule and the masses existing like the masses did in our own country during the Robber Barron period over a century ago. They’d be find and dandy with Trump turning back the U.S. clock to that time.
However, there are cracks that have been barely perceptible that just might be starting to split wide open. Trump’s support of Brexit has left a wound many in the UK haven’t forgotten because they are still struggling to deal with it. Still, as I said their leaders have been reticent about openly challenging Trump. Until now. As this article from The Daily Beast tells us Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney is done trying to to pretend whatever happens Tuesday it’s ‘all well and good’ as far as he and his fellow Scots are concerned. He knows damn well the average person there views Trump about as favorably as a dog turd on the sidewalk. If he were to make the rounds in pubs this weekend he wouldn’t have to buy a single Pint! Hell, some of the house “good stuff”, old single malt Scotch would come out from the backroom!
Swinny didn’t pull punches:
“People in the United States of America should vote for Kamala Harris,” Swinney said to reporters. “And I’ve not come to that conclusion only because Donald Trump is opposed to Scottish independence.”
Again, this is Scotland and the average American voter and I suspect most MAGAs know little about the place. Nor do they care much unless they happen to be avid golfers. Ireland, because of St. Patrick’s Day is another matter but Scotland? Ho hum. If Trump had a lick of sense he wouldn’t have even commented. But nooooooooo. He just had to weigh in on how much he’s done for the country. In case you didn’t know he’s embroiled in litigation over unauthorized actions he took “improving” his properties. No, they almost all hate his fat orange butt. This is the LAST thing he should be thinking about tonight or this weekend. One can only hope that on social media ordinary Scots start with the tweets and posts with memes mocking Trump. And citing their First Minister.
Again, this is Trump we’re talking about and I think if that happens over the weekend he won’t be able to resist making a BFD about it. And right when he most needs American voters to be thinking about what he might do that they want Trump might go off on a rant about freaking SCOTLAND. Every vote matters and that’s exactly the kind of thing that would nudge some more on-the-fence Independents our way. And cause some (admittedly a small number but like I said it all matters) to say ‘to hell with it – I’m not even going to bother voting.’ It’s not quite as good as a vote for Harris but what would have been a vote for Trump NOT being cast is almost as good.
So raise a glass to Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney. In thanks for him perhaps knocking Trump a little more off balance at a time Trump can least afford it.
wouldn’t Trump be barred ftom entering Scotland now that he’s a convicted felon?😄
Excellent! Now, if only each of the world leaders who laughed at him at the United Nations summit would follow suit very rapidly in endorsing Harris, that would drive Trump simply bonkers. God love’m if they would!
Another blow a malignant narcissist won’t be able to tolerate.
It’s hard to say what’s bothering him more – the ego blow or the very real threat from the fact his properties in the UK have lost money year after year and that if he loses (and I think he’s worried he will) Putin and the oligarchs will finally run out of patience. As I said Trump massively overspent to acquire those golf properties, and then spent a fortune on them afterwards. No one knows where the money came from. No bank in the U.S. for sure and not even Deutshe Bank seems to have coughed up any funds on them. What we DO have are his twin “Fredo” sons casually remarking to golf writers twenty years ago about finances. Sports reporters aren’t generally taken as serious journalists but keep in mind golf reporters spend their lives hanging out with and getting to know (and make friends with) tons of very, very rich people with big moneyed interests. Operating a top level golf course/club takes an awful lot of money and many big name properties have struggled at times and changed hands as a result. Or gotten infusions of mega bucks from very rich people. Golf writers cover this stuff.
So, they know the value of golf courses/resorts and keep an eye on how they are doing financially. They often know a LOT more about finance, at least when it comes to golf (including courses/properties) than many people who spend their time covering finance! Not that Trump, much less Fredo 1 or 2 would get that simple fact. Getting each of them to separately talk about golf course acquisition and where the money came from (it’s not like Trump financial issues and U.S. Banks publicly breaking from doing business with him weren’t well known early in this century) was a natural thing to shoot the breeze about during a round of golf at a Trump course. Each idiot son brushed off concerns about getting the loans, saying they were getting all the money they needed out of Russia!
Trump has had his protectors in the U.K. “Men of Letters” so to speak. Those old, OLD money types with a bunch of titles with long acronyms hence the term ‘Men of Letters.” It would be embarrassing for some of those guys and worse their families if Trump scandal wound up making their own assistance to him (protection against investigation) public. Given the problems the monarchy and the old system already faces with the public who knows? Stripping those assholes of titles is the kind of thing that would likely gain the new King some favor with his subjects!
Trump is juggling a lot of legal chainsaws and has been for a while. Both criminal and civil and adding in issues overseas, and being heavily financed by Pootie and the oligarchs would make for a rapid end to the Trump Org. Wouldn’t it be funny to see Trump going hat in hand to Jarvanka looking for financial help? I think so. However that will only happen IF we kick his ass next week, and make sure Tim Walz is sworn in next January and Harris right after. With new House Speaker (the office third in the line of succession before it starts going through the Cabinet) Hakeem Jeffries looking on. I won’t breath easy or sleep well until a few minutes after noon (the prescribed time for a President to take the Oath) on inauguration day. But if we all do our jobs and things turn out the way they should next week I’ll be doing better to a fair degree. I bet you will too.
The expression is a ‘Gorbals Uppercut’ (The Gorbals is a working class area of Glasgow and the blow is delivered by a sharply rising knee)
I think the more common term is a Glasgow Kiss (a blow from the forehead to an opponents face). Perhaps now with Swinney in charge the governmemt will actually endorse an Unexplained Wealth order (wee Nicola chickened out). https://bylines.scot/business/a-renewed-call-to-investigate-trumps-fraud-in-scotland/
Slight difference in the two – the Gorbals uppercut is also described as a knee to the goolies