I met my first full-on MAGA type this week. I could tell, because he was wearing a baseball cap with “TRUMP” written across it.
This being Scotland – Edinburgh, to be precise – there might have been a chance of someone flipping it off his head, had he not been around 6’3”, seemingly made of bricks and, I soon learned, a veteran of the US Navy. He was probably safe.
We fell into conversation, which involved him almost weepily describing what he saw as the US President’s astonishing virtues. The economy was flying, immigration was being crushed, and America’s enemies were on the run – as were the “pathetic” Democrats. When I (gently) put the alternative case to him I was dismissed as a bit of a lefty, which doesn’t happen to me very often. He was heading back to the States on Friday, just as his hero is expected to arrive in Scotland on a four-day trip. Trump is visiting his golf courses in Ayrshire and Aberdeenshire, and is also due to meet Keir Starmer and John Swinney. “He’ll sort those boys out,” said Mr Maga with a cackle, before heading off into the night.
Perhaps. Although, according to the Scottish left, it is Swinney who should be doing the sorting out. The First Minister has been told by activists in his own party that he should put pressure on Trump to withdraw US support for Israel. Nadia El-Nakla, the wife of Swinney’s predecessor Humza Yousaf, and who has family in Gaza, said he should demand that Trump “compel” Israel to step back. Now, in Scottish terms, Swinney is a powerful man, but I’m not sure his leverage extends that far. I certainly wouldn’t open with it. A tokenistic mention is probably as much as can be expected.
There has been the usual outrage that this most controversial of presidents is even setting foot on Scottish soil. Some are furious that the First Minister is meeting him. Many more are angry that Trump will return later this year for a state visit, when he will meet the King at Windsor. Trump is beyond the pale, a brutal dictator, and the UK should basically restrict any engagement, hunker down and wait for him to leave office, is their argument.
But not even the leadership of the SNP – a party not immune to daft foreign policy thinking – believes this is a sensible idea. The man runs the most powerful country in the world, and is doing so with gangsterish swagger – bombing, tariff-ing and ripping up the old order across the planet. Whatever your view of him, he is probably the most consequential US president since Reagan, and must be accommodated.
Hence, Ian Murray, the Scottish Secretary, promised a “warm welcome”. “The office of the president of the United States and the office of the prime minister are ones that work very, very closely together… We should make sure those relationships are in place because it’s important for our defence, our security, our economy,” he added. Quite.
Politics requires a certain level of hypocrisy, and those in power who have little time for Trump will have to paint on a smile, roll out the flattery and show him a good time. That is what Murray is doing – in 2019 he signed a motion in the Commons accusing the president of “misogynism, racism and xenophobia”. I doubt his view of the man has changed, but he is unlikely to repeat the charge this weekend.
There will be protests, of course, and fair enough. Perhaps the most magnificently Scottish protest of all time happened during a previous, pre-presidential Trump visit to the Scottish Parliament in 2012, when a man named Stan Blackley rubbed a balloon on the tycoon’s head, making his hair stand on end. “I just found myself behind Donald Trump with a balloon one day and did what any sane and sensible person would have done,” Blackley explained. No-one will get that close this time – a huge security operation has been launched by Scottish police to prevent disruption.
Trump will want to talk to Starmer about trade and Ukraine and the Middle East, no doubt, but he is also expected to make a pitch for Turnberry, his Ayrshire golf course, to host the Open Championship. The course last hosted the event in 2009. Given Trump’s obsession with the game, and his fragile ego, it might be wise for both Starmer and Swinney to offer their support for the idea. He is also likely to be asked about drilling in the North Sea, having said ahead of his visit that “They have so much oil there. They should get rid of the windmills and bring back the oil.”
Trump creates headlines wherever he goes. It’s Scotland’s turn to experience Maga in full effect.
[Further reading: The abomination of Obama’s nation]
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