The Trump blimp would be an interesting gesture if its virtue signalling wasn’t so direly inconsistent.
The Trump blimp makes Britain look like a childish, lost nation caught up in fashionable but ultimately false morals out of step with reality.
President Donald Trump is in town, but London is apparently off limits because the Mayor of said city has conspired to offend him, to make the most powerful man on the planet feel unwelcome and to make the city as ‘open’ to freedom of expression and critique of that freedom as Jeddah.
Sure, it’s fine to have street protests, but I object very strongly to this balloon being flown, Why? Because the perception is that it’s representative of the view of the British people, and I don’t think it is. It’s insulting, offensive, and childish, and I feel quite ashamed our authorities have rubber stamped it. If those protestors are so against the idea of Trump speaking his mind, then why poke fun at him rather than addressing/debating his statements?
The only thing the balloon will achieve is to make its supporters feel better and morally superior-which unfortunately at the end of the day is the whole point.
An inflated example of gesture politics is all it is, and a pathetic reminder of how many on the left have descended to the same level as the target of their protest.
And then of course there’s the real baby at the heart of the matter, Sadiq Khan-t do anything, the Mayor of London. I wonder whether Sadiq would have granted permission for the equivalent inflatable of Obama.
If yes, then fair enough.
If no then his decision was political bias and nothing to do with not wanting to censor, as he claimed.
What is rather odd is that you have a Mayor of London who would rather authorise the flying of this silly balloon in the middle of London while banning kitchen knives as a solution to knife crime with hundreds dead on his watch instead of putting cops on the beat like Rudolf Guilliani did in New York with proven results.
It’s not the blimp itself that is an issue for me. As a piece of satire, it ranks with anything Monty Python might have come up with in the days, pre-PC, when satire was a permitted expression of ridicule.
The issue for me is that Sadiq Khan endorsed it and allowed it to fly over Parliament Square. Khan has thus disqualified himself from a role in public life in which diplomatic protocols play an important part. Khan himself is now an object of satirical ridicule, as the numerous proposals for counter-blimpery have illustrated.
Of course, Khan will be encouraging similar insults for the next visit of any Chinese leader or Islamic Potentate….
These gnawing protesters did not fly an inflatable Chinese President Xi Jinping caricature when that true human rights abuser visited. They did not even protest much at all. It’s the inconsistency of their virtue signalling that is hilarious.
Whatever our individual or even collective views, President Trump is the democratically elected President of the USA, one of our longest standing allies. More US citizens chose to vote for him than for anyone else. It is the office of President and the citizens of the USA that we respect, choosing to keep personality out of it. It is called being respectful and civil, character traits sadly lacking in some in our society these days.
