Donald Trump

Bad history leads to bad politics – from Trump to Brexit and Scotland Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 2nd 2020 The past is always with us, being remade and reinterpreted to suit the needs of the present. Yet in today’s world of complexity, change and messiness - as well as constant information and disinformation - a lot of questionable interpretations of the past are gaining currency and being used to justify bad politics in the here and now. The most obvious is Trump who, despite over 180,000 Americans officially dead from COVID-19, is running for re-election as President on a

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How we should and shouldn’t commemorate VE Day Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, May 6th 2020 This coming Friday May 8^th is an important moment in the history of all of us - the 75^th anniversary of the defeat of fascism and Nazism in Europe in World War Two. It is important to mark, commemorate and remember those who gave their lives in the defeat of fascism - and to learn from what happened. This means not allowing the anniversary to be taken over by unchallenged official accounts that feed into the endless British obsession with 1939-45. The rise and defeat

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Gordon Jackson, Trump and the Politics of an Aging Society Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 1st 2020 1. This weekend it was revealed that Gordon Jackson QC, Alex Salmond’s defence counsel, was filmed on the Edinburgh-Glasgow train talking in an indiscreet and unprofessional manner when his client’s trial was ongoing. Jackson did not paint his client in an edifying light, stating that he was ‘a sex pest’ who was ‘a nasty person to work for’, ‘a nightmare’ and ‘bully’ as well as ‘inappropriate, [an] arsehole, [and] stupid’. Even worse than this, Jackson – a longstanding figure in the Scottish legal

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Men Behaving Badly: Boris Johnson, Prince Andrew and Trump Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 19th 2019 Boris Johnson in the past week has seen his Tory fortunes soar. This was in a week when Johnson belatedly went and spoke to the people affected by the Yorkshire floods and faced their anger. In the same period, he struggled to answer why he might be ‘relatable’; avoided giving a straight reply to that well-known killer question, ‘how many children do you have?’, and with wider consequences for our politics professed to not know the number of Russian oligarchs who fund the Tory

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Letter from America: Let’s Stop Looking to America for the Future Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 30th 2019 ‘You don’t know how lucky you are. Never take your democracy for granted. You don’t realise what it’s worth until it’s too late.’ Mikola Statkevich, former Belarusian Presidential candidate, 2015 America likes to think of itself as the shining light on the hill, as the exemplar in the whole world of life, liberty and happiness. Yet the America of today is increasingly turning it back on such a version of itself. This is a dysfunctional, divided, unhappy society, increasingly not at ease

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Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban: This is not an Age of Fascism Yet Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 31st 2018 A spectre is haunting the modern world: fascism. All around the world people are talking about and identifying fascists. Newspaper headlines abound in the US such as ‘Is Donald Trump a fascist?’, ‘How fascist is Donald Trump?’ and even more emphatically, ‘Donald Trump is actually a fascist’: all from mainstream liberal papers. The threat of fascism is now a worldwide phenomenon. We have just seen in the Brazil the victory of ‘strongman’ Jair Bolsonaro; the Hungarian authoritarianism of Viktor Orban; the rise

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Prisoners of the Past: Tony Blair, Trump and Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, February 22nd 2017 The past is a powerful force and that is even more true in the strange times we are living in. Take the waves of reaction and revulsion emerging last week after Tony Blair came back from the cold to announce his new initiative on Brexit. Blair’s intervention took place at the start of the 20^th anniversary of the first New Labour landslide, but also bizarrely after the Commons voted to trigger Article 50, and six days before two critical by-elections for

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The Day Britain Died: Brexit, Trump and Scottish Independence Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, February 15th 2017 Last week a Rubicon was crossed as the House of Commons voted 494 to 122 – a government majority of 372 - to give a third reading to triggering Article 50. Just as seriously on the same day - Wednesday February 8^th 2017 – the UK Government reneged on its promise to take 3,000 child refugees (what was called the Dubs amendment) and slashed the number to 350. If that wasn’t enough the Commons at the same time voted to refuse to offer any

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Trump, Political Violence and when is it right to punch Nazis? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, February 8th 2017 It is a season of heated tempers and invective across the political world. One that matches the widespread atmosphere of confusion and disorientation. This is a mood in which there are winners and losers: people who crave this kind of moment, and many who lament the passing of the previous era. Mainstream political sentiment is uncomfortable and on the defensive. But radicals of the right and left celebrate this new found chaos as a once in a lifetime opportunity. Are they right

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Despite Trump and Brexit there are still Reasons to be Cheerful Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, January 26th 2017 A haunting refrain echoes around the globe. The world, many emphatically say, has gone to pot what with Trump, Brexit, terrorism, ISIS, the march of the far right, fake news, alternative facts and more. This miserablist take on modern times has a familiar refrain in Britain. It states that the country has gone in entirely the wrong direction these last 30 to 40 years. ‘Margaret Thatcher / poll tax / Tony Blair / Iraq war’ has become a spellbinding, intoxicating description

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