As U.S. President Donald Trump embarks on the second day of his state visit, the British mainstream media and Liberal establishment have reacted furiously. The President is on a three-day trip to the UK that marks the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
“[H]is misogynistic outbursts and attacks on journalists, minorities and anyone else perceived as an enemy drive a good number of people to conclude that he is a dangerous man to hold so much power,” British newspaper The independent remarked.
“Trump is a one-man-round of Cards Against Humanity,” the left-wing newspaper The Guardian said. Another Guardian commentator compared President’s visit to “a brutal assault… on progressive values.”
The Guardian published a lead editorial titled the “view on Trump’s state visit: the president is not welcome”:
Mr Trump is only the third US president ever to be honoured with a state visit, the others being George W Bush and Barack Obama. Inviting him in the first place was a crass error. (…)Mr Trump is a demagogue who represents a threat to peace, democracy and the climate of our planet. (…)It is incumbent upon Mrs May and others to challenge him directly – or risk appearing to give the assault on women’s rights, and bullying of neighbouring states, a seal of approval. The climate emergency should be on every agenda – including Prince Charles’s. The protesters, whom police have wrongly barred from the entrance to Downing Street, are justifiably angry. So is London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, whom Mr Trump has previously insulted, and who hit back on Saturday in the strongest terms.
The newspaper was referring to the war of words between President Trump and Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Ahead of Trump’s arrival, Khan wrote an op-ed likening him to ‘a 20th-century fascist.’ Trump responded on Twitter, calling him a “stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London.”
Khan, meanwhile, continued to insult the visiting U.S. President, calling him the “poster boy for the far-right,” with New York mayor Bill de Blasio coming to Khan’s defense. De Blasio demanded Trump apologize to Khan for his previous remarks. He described the Mayor of London as “an exemplary leader,” and disparaged the President as “part of this growing, intolerant, right-wing movement around the world that is harming democracy. It’s harming the realities of a tolerant society.”
The Independent supported Khan and anti-Trump protesters, claiming “history shows the dangers of not speaking out against authoritarians who would clamp down on hard-won freedoms.” The British newspaper echoed Khan’s remarks, calling Trump a “poster boy for this neo-authoritarianism, which has nationalism and conservatism at its heart.”
The mean-spirited attacks weren’t limited to the President alone. The Guardian likened the First Lady Melania Trump’s attire to that of a ‘flight attendant.’ “Melania arrived in the UK dressed as a flight attendant who tells you that there are no blankets available because they only stock them on night flights,” the newspaper commented. “No, but seriously; look at Melania’s scarf: ‘Hun, I’m afraid we’ve run out of the Pringles, but we’ve got Mini Cheddars?'”
Not just the mainstream media, the left-wing political establishment was equally furious at the visiting President. “Politicians unite to condemn Trump during visit,” the London-based Times noted.
“Trump is doing great damage to British interests and our traditional alliance with America,” deputy leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, Sir Vince Cable, wrote on Twitter. A senior Labour party leader called U.S. president a ‘sexual predator’ and ‘racist.’ “The truth is he has tried to close borders with Muslim-majority countries,” the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, told BBC Radio. “He is a sexual predator, he is a racist and it’s right to say that – we need to think about when is it our country got so scared?”
President Trump addresses the Queen at the State Banquet
The Labour party chief, Jeremy Corbyn, is spearheading anti-Trump protesters in London. “Corbyn asks the country to protest against the President,” The Telegraph reported. “Thousands of protesters are expected to descend on London’s Trafalgar Square where Mr Corbyn will whip up the crowd with a speech about Mr Trump’s “misogyny and climate change,” the newspaper added.
Anti-Trump activists held a “Together Against Trump” protest in Central London and calling the event a “carnival of resistance.” Triggered by the presence of the U.S. President, protesters gathered at Trafalgar Square calling for a “Trump-free zone.”
While the mainstream media rooted for anti-Trump protesters, with MSNBC declaring that “[t]ens of thousands of protesters are expected to flood the streets of London in protest at President Trump’s state visit to the UK,” the actual turn out was much lower.
Trump dismissed the media frenzy as ‘fake news.’ “There were thousands of people cheering,” he said. “I don’t see any protests. I did see a small protest today, very small. So, a lot of it is fake news, I hate to say.”
[Cover image via YouTube]
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