The Making of a Great American Loser

Bigly Daddy and His Dynastic Dream 

MacLeod House and Lodge

Four years ago we awoke to discover to our astonishment that Donald Trump was the new American President. Hilary Clinton had been beaten, not by votes, she won the popular vote by 2.9 million, but by the bizarre American electoral college voting system, she lost. This was only the second time in 118 years that the winner of the popular vote did not become President. Trump was the loser of the popular vote but was inaugurated as the President. A real estate, reality TV narcissist whose track record in tax evasion and misogyny would have disqualified him from most jobs. Admittedly Hillary Clinton had her problems like standing by her man, using private email accounts and an expectation that the presidency somehow stays within family dynasties. 

Donald Trump, the man who had destroyed the sand dunes at Balmedie near Aberdeen despite the dunes being a Site of Special Scientific Interest, was now the most powerful man in the world. He had promised a £1 billion golf resort with a five-star hotel, two golf courses and holiday homes. Most of these promises did not materialise and only 84 jobs have been created with the Macleod House and Lodge, essentially a little house on the prairie, masquerading as his International five-star hotel. It summed up the man perfectly, full of false promises, exaggerated claims of expenditure and with little concern for the little man. It was yet another failed loss-making development and he lost his fight to stop the Council from allowing offshore wind turbines to be erected in the North Sea adjacent to his golf resort. 

He responded by reporting £155m of losses across his two Scottish golf resorts (Balmedie and Turnberry) in 2018, so paid no corporation tax and then received a £1m tax rebate from the Scottish Government. It was bad enough when Alex Salmond caved in to Trump's pressure to overturn the decision of Aberdeenshire Council to refuse permission. The Scottish Government has now been taken for fools again by allowing him tax concessions having failed to deliver his project and bullied local residents who had properties that he wished to demolish. 

Four years later even the tawdry expectations of a Trump Presidency have been grossly exceeded. The USA's image in the world has been besmirched. International organisations have been undermined by his isolationism, human rights and black lives have been denigrated and any trust in politicians has been lost, evaporated through his constant accusations that unwelcome facts are fake news. 

Statesmanship has given way to deal-making, preferably with personal gain involved, and the English Language has been mangled in a bigly way. Having watched the farrago of lies, accusations and abuse for the last four years, the really worrying outcome is that over 70 million Americans voted for his promise of tax cuts, the right to carry arms and Making America Great Again. But he lost by over 7 million votes, the largest margin since John McCain lost to Obama in 2008. Trump said at the time that "He (McCain) lost. He let us down, I don't like losers." Trump was a lucky loser in 2016. This time losing was for real, although he is still trying to sell that as fake news as he stokes up his supporters and charges his lawyers to dispute the democratic truth.

Joe Biden's victory has been greeted with great relief from the international community but he has some job on his hands repurposing American Democracy so that it regains respect and credibility across the world.