Tag: Donald Trump

Trump’s “Vermin” Crack: Nothing New Except the Reaction

Trump’s “Vermin” Crack: Nothing New Except the Reaction

"We speak of the Minister of Health, but ought we not rather to say the Minister of Disease? For is not morbid hatred a form of mental disease, moral disease, and indeed a highly infectious form? Indeed, I can think of no better step to signalize the inauguration of the National Health Service than that a person who so obviously needs psychiatrical attention should be among the first of its patients." —Churchill on Bevan, 1948

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Mr. Ivison: May we proclaim Trump no Churchill without slurring the latter?

Mr. Ivison: May we proclaim Trump no Churchill without slurring the latter?

Mr. Ivison is right. And wrong.

John Ivi­son in Canada’s Nation­al Post makes the point: “Don­ald Trump is no Win­ston Churchill, and the com­par­i­son is ludi­crous.” He refers to a June 3rd state­ment by the President’s press sec­re­tary, Kayleigh McE­nany. (She com­pared Trump’s appear­ance at St. John’s Epis­co­pal Church across from the White House to Churchill vis­it­ing the blitzed East End in 1940.)

I think from a pure­ly his­tor­i­cal point of view we can all agree with him. In 1940, Churchill wrote, “There was a white glow, over-pow­er­ing, sub­lime, which ran through our Island from end to end.”…

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Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Spo­rad­i­cal­ly, pun­dits com­pare Don­ald Trump with Win­ston Churchill. There’s even a book com­ing out on the sub­ject. I dep­re­cate all this by instinct and will avoid that book like the Coro­n­avirus. Sur­face sim­i­lar­i­ties may exist: both said or say main­ly what they thought or think, unfil­tered by polls (and some­times good advice). But Churchill’s lan­guage and thought were on a high­er plane. Still, when a friend said that Churchill nev­er stooped to deri­sive nick­names like Trump, I had to disagree.

Whether invent­ed by the Pres­i­dent or his scriptwrit­ers, some of Trump’s nick­names were very effec­tive.…

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Johnson, Trump…can we stop comparing everybody to Churchill?

Johnson, Trump…can we stop comparing everybody to Churchill?

Politi­cians, most often Boris John­son and Don­ald Trump at the moment, are often com­pared to Win­ston Churchill. In a way it’s nice PR for Sir Win­ston. Half a cen­tu­ry since his death, the Great­est Briton still dom­i­nates media. His Google hit count is 100 mil­lion. (Franklin Roo­sevelt, the West’s oth­er great war leader, is at 72 million.)

Right­ly or wrong­ly, every day on the Inter­net, Churchill is praised, lam­pooned, quot­ed and mis­quot­ed. But com­par­isons to mod­ern politi­cians have worn thin. They may emu­late him, but should not be com­pared to him.

Johnson’s Day in the barrel

On 15 June the Wall Street Jour­nal focused on British prime min­is­ter in wait­ing Boris John­son.…

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Churchill and Free Trade: That was Then, This is Now

Churchill and Free Trade: That was Then, This is Now

On Free Trade and tariffs

The Hud­son Insti­tute  econ­o­mist Irwin Stelz­er penned an inter­est­ing arti­cle on trade: “Trump girds for War with EU.” I sent it around to col­leagues, prais­ing it for prop­er­ly attribut­ing an alleged Churchill quote:

No one doubts that Trump is gear­ing up to launch a tar­iff bat­tle with the Euro­pean Union. For one thing, he is set to sign a deal end­ing the trade bat­tle with Chi­na, and would not be fight­ing a two-front war should he take on Europe which, he tweet­ed last week, “has tak­en advan­tage of the U.S.…

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Mr. Stern, Mr. Trump, Churchill Quotes and Misquotes

Mr. Stern, Mr. Trump, Churchill Quotes and Misquotes

Novem­ber 27th— Writ­ing in the Dai­ly Beast, Mr. Mar­low Stern prais­es Kristin Scott Thomas (“Clemen­tine Churchill” in the new movie Dark­est Hour) and announces: “Don­ald Trump is No Win­ston Churchill.” (Past doubt, but who is?)

Mr. Stern him­self offers only one Churchill quote and gets it right: “A free press is the unsleep­ing guardian of every oth­er right that free men prize; it is the most dan­ger­ous foe of tyran­ny.” (Col­liers, 28 Decem­ber 1935.)

Bin­go! That’s an obscure one. For­give him for vast­ly exag­ger­at­ing Churchill’s alco­hol intake. (WSC’s “six whisky sodas” were described by his pri­vate sec­re­tary as “scotch-fla­vored mouth­wash.”

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Trump, Russia, and Churchill’s Wisdom

Trump, Russia, and Churchill’s Wisdom

Pub­lished 8 March 2017 on the Dai­ly Caller, under the title “A Les­son on Rus­sia for Trump.” Their title, not mine; I do not pre­sume to offer any­one lessons. 

“I can­not fore­cast to you the action of Rus­sia. It is a rid­dle wrapped in a mys­tery inside an enig­ma: but per­haps there is a key. That key is Russ­ian nation­al inter­est.” —Win­ston Churchill, 1939

“If Putin likes Trump, guess what, folks, that’s called an asset, not a lia­bil­i­ty. Now I don’t know that I’m going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t.”     —Don­ald Trump, 2017

Russia National Interests

Trump-Churchill com­par­isons are invid­i­ous and sil­ly.…

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Mosul and Churchill’s Wisdom: Put a Lid on It!

Mosul and Churchill’s Wisdom: Put a Lid on It!

Churchill’s wis­dom speaks to us across the years. Take the con­tro­ver­sy of whether we blab too much in advance about mil­i­tary oper­a­tions, like Mosul.

In the Octo­ber 19th pres­i­den­tial debate, Mr. Trump said the U.S. and Iraqis for­feit­ed “the ele­ment of sur­prise” in pub­li­ciz­ing the com­ing offen­sive against Mosul. This, he insist­ed, allowed Islam­ic State ring­lead­ers to remove them­selves from the dan­ger zone: “Dou­glas MacArthur, George Pat­ton [must be] spin­ning in their graves when they see the stu­pid­i­ty of our coun­try.” Ear­li­er in the week he had asked: “Why don’t we just go in qui­et­ly, right?…

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Brexit: Britannia Waives the Rules

Brexit: Britannia Waives the Rules

Brex­it after­math, June 2016: In vot­ing to leave the Euro­pean Union, Britain has opt­ed to become anoth­er Nor­way. One of the most pros­per­ous and con­tent­ed coun­tries in the world, Nor­way does fine with its own laws, cur­ren­cy, and trade agree­ments, includ­ing a good one with the EU. It is hard­ly a bad model.

Short-term troubles

The gnash­ing of teeth over the upset Brex­it vic­to­ry resounds around the world. For awhile, chaos will attend finan­cial mar­kets, and the pound will take a dip (boost­ing British exports).

The Scots vot­ed against Brex­it, though not in the num­bers pre­dict­ed.…

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