Ben Lowry: Just as soon as he is elected we are reminded of the bad side to Donald Trump


I have thought this for a long time about conspiracy theorists.
They might be intelligent but if they hold to such theories late in life then they have failed to understand something fundamental about human nature.
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Hide AdThat things are much more chaotic and prone to error than the conspiracy believers imagine in their dark world, in which organised forces do evil things seamlessly, and undetected (by everyone apart from the conspiracy theorist).
As journalists we not only report on the chaotic nature of life in all urgent situations such as hospital emergency rooms or wars. We know also the chaos in news.
You could scarcely imagine some of the turbulence behind the newspapers you read each day, as events suddenly change and we have to tear up pages, or computer systems partially fail (as happened in one part of our production processes late last evening, as this paper was being put to bed).
The conspiracy theorists also under-estimate how indiscreet human beings typically are. If so many as three people alive today were bound to secrecy over some hitherto buried explanation as to exactly what happened when President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, such a remarkable story would be worth a billion dollars. The trio would most likely have fallen out among themselves over the money, or one of them would have told a lover, or another might have turned to drink, or the third become religious and racked with guilt.
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Hide AdThis is not to say that such a conspiracy could not happen, but rather that the bigger and darker a conspiracy is, the harder it is to hold together.
Which brings me to one of Donald Trump’s many, many bad sides.
In 2020, I wrote an article saying why I hoped that Joe Biden would defeat him in the then presidential election, despite the fact that my own politics was well to the right of then Vice President Biden’s Democratic Party.
Some of my regular readers reacted with disappointment and in some cases almost anger towards the piece. One said that I was endorsing an IRA supporter.
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Hide AdI say in response to that that I cannot think of an issue that made me hesitate in my very reluctant support for Mr Biden more than Northern Ireland. In the end, Mr Biden did indeed apply pressure on the UK to capitulate to Irish post Brexit demands, hence playing a key role in our disastrous Irish Sea border.
While Mr Trump’s victory will have many beneficial consequences, it will have appalling consequences too.
The obvious good consequence from a unionist perspective is that the incoming president, while he is unlikely to show much interest in Northern Ireland, will not be always inclined to assist Dublin’s agenda on NI.
Other good consequences that should be of concern to conservative Britons include the fact that his win might encourage the Democrats finally to take seriously immigration, to listen to the wider cultural concerns of hard-working blue collar Americans on matters such as woke and trans extremism, to respect the religious and patriotic values of such citizens, and to ensure that the party never again flirts with such a contemptible movement as Defund The Police, and avoids adopting a candidate like Kamala Harris who seemed to hesitate in denouncing such nonsense.
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Hide Ad(A footnote on that: remember how the then PSNI chief constable Simon Byrne foolishly said, in effect, that we all support Black Lives Matter? Well, we don’t. Then, equally foolishly, apologised over the PSNI’s entirely appropriate fining of the Black Lives Matter protestors who, calculatedly, and twice, and en masse, defied the lockdown rules that the rest of us obeyed? And all because of another atrocious Police Ombudsman report, criticising the appropriate police response to their illegal protest? His spineless climbdown gave succour to an extremist BLM movement that was at one with the Defund the Police lunacy).
But Mr Trump’s victory will have many very, very bad consequences too.
One consequence is the coming capitulation to that warmonger President Vladimir Putin, and the signal it sends to other repressive and expansionist dictatorships such as China.
Specifically, the consequences for Nato, which might yet not survive in its current form a Trump presidency.
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Hide AdAnother consequence is the rise in superstition, and away from evidence-based science.
And a third is what it means for the peaceful transition of power after elections, something that Mr Trump alone has spurned among US presidents of the last century.
These are global matters, not local ones.
Many of us were hoping that Mr Trump in office would retreat from his wilder ideas.
But in trying to appoint Robert F Kennedy as US health secretary and Matt Gaetz as US attorney general Mr Trump has elevated two conspiracy theorists to the highest levels of American government. His choice of National Intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, is reported to have endorsed Russian conspiracy theories, which would be unforgivable in any leading politician, let alone someone about to be put in such a vital and sensitive role.
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Hide AdI saw Mr Kennedy introduce a Trump event in Arizona and in many respects he is a compelling speaker. But his support for what was long ago exposed as lies about the MMR vaccine is, to use again word I just did, unforgivable, given the consequences it will have for children if he becomes health boss.
And then to appoint Mr Gaetz as a stooge legal chief who will help whitewash Mr Trump’s conduct in the January 2021 storming of the Capitol is shocking.
This column has touched on only some of the reasons why I will always be wary of President elect Trump.