Trick-o-the-loops will always be in our midst

The greatest achievement of any tuppenny-ha'penny columnist since November 9 last is to avoid the mention of the name Donald Trump in any of their outpourings, but already I’ve broken the golden rule and let the cat out of the bag.

When, in one of those vacant or pensive moods [as Mr. Wordsworth might describe them], I did a quick trawl through newspaper columns from different parts of the globe and there was just no escaping the T word.

To say that Mr. T ain’t popular is probably one of the great under-statements of the 21st century but it also has to be said that his outlandishness and narrow-mindedness has been matched many times over by an assortment of left wing cranks from all over the globe, protesting outside every henhouse door and social media outlet about the new leader in the US.

One of my more mischievous friends in the local hostelry came out with a ‘good one’ the other night when he exclaimed with a real swagger of confidence that Donald Trump had done more in 24 hours for the health of women across America and the globe, than Barack Obama had achieved in the previous eight years.

We didn’t have to wait long for his explanation. “Well, in one day, he got millions of women from all over the world out on the streets, getting plenty of fresh air, flexing their vocal chords and partaking in brisk walks across the cities of the globe.”

There probably wasn’t much argument with that one and while we all know that there is a far more serious side to the ongoing Trump media and political circus, a bit like marriage – for better or worse – this is who we have to deal with as the leader of the world’s most powerful country for the next four years.

For an ordinary ‘country Pake’, it is quite difficult to understand how the American people took it upon themselves to vote this man into office but at times, despite all the education and wealth of a country like the US, serious questions have to be raised about the IQ of a people where many houses have enough guns in their cupbords to wipe out half their neighbourhoods.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.