STRAP in, folks! By teatime, Donald Trump will be back in the White House.
If you have been anywhere near a TV or radio in the past few days, you’d be forgiven for thinking the end is nigh.
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The BBC is flitting between funereal and hysterical as it prepares for season two of the Trump show, which it has already decided smugly is going to be a turkey.
Endless guests have been lined up to reignite the more deranged commentary that did nothing to stop The Donald getting elected in November.
And its hosts either sound like they want to cry or have tried to perfect that weary faux-amused sneer that signals to fellow critics their distaste at the mere mention of “Trump”.
It’s “President Macron”, “Prime Minister Keir Starmer” or “former President Obama”.
READ MORE FROM HARRY COLE
But on the Beeb it is always just “Trump” — his correct title or full name clearly revoked for not pleasing nice middle-class lefty sentiments.
Backward mindset
Any suggestion that it was the President-elect’s pressure on Israel, or Hamas and their sugar daddy Iran, that finally saw arms laid down in Gaza is greeted with contemptuous scepticism.
It is baked into coverage that Trump will sell Ukraine down the river, dance to Putin’s tune and make the Middle East more dangerous.
Pundits who suggest otherwise are given a far rougher ride in questioning than anyone mouthing off about how The Orange Man is bad. There are seemingly no upsides for anyone, and that’s case closed.
Worse still are the politicians getting on the trendy bandwagon.
Take Ed Davey, the Lib Dem bloke you may remember making an arse out of himself on a daily basis during last year’s election, before winning 70 seats only to become somehow even less relevant in Westminster than when he previously had just a dozen MPs.
“Trump returning to the White House will be deeply worrying for millions of people in the UK and around the world,” he opined last night.
“With a President who promises trade wars, undermines Nato and praises Vladimir Putin, the threats to our national security and our economy are clear.”
And what’s his answer? “The UK must lead on the world stage again, standing up for our interests by working closely with other countries — above all, our European neighbours.”
Of course undoing Brexit is the answer to everything.
I fear we will be hearing more of this backward-looking mindset in the coming weeks — using any tiny slip or blip from the President to scream at the top of their voices about what they actually hate.
Because we’ve already seen it play out.
Could everyone please just take a deep breath and calm the hell down
Harry Cole
In 2016 the US media’s collective nervous breakdown about Trump set the tone for coverage of his presidency around the globe. Yes, he is brash; yes, he can be rude; no, he doesn’t necessarily play to the normal political playbook.
But what we should have learnt in the nine or so years he has been playing the world’s commentators and pundits like a cheap fiddle is that he is not an idiot — however much the political elites might wish he was and paint him as such.
And I fear they are going down the same route here for round two. Mentioning any potential benefits to the UK of the incoming administration is dismissed as a cranky right- wing view because you have obviously been brainwashed by Elon Musk.
Trump clearly has a soft spot for the UK itself, and the Royal Family especially.
We should be ruthless in capitalising on that rather than carping.
Free from Brussels, we also have a nimbleness and distance from the EU that he loathes — and Brexit could be the biggest tool in our arsenal to escape any US-EU trade war.
Yet it is the one thing the anti-Trump brigade are trying to unpick.
Wishful thinking
And though they hate to mention it because they refuse to understand it, there were no major wars started around the world while the Commander in Chief baffled and scared despots and democracies alike.
I suspect it is wishful thinking to ask, but could everyone please just take a deep breath and calm the hell down.
Save the righteous anger, step away from the keyboard with your zinging ‘hot take’ about how dreadful everything is now and . . . let’s just see how it goes.
Donald Trump may yet be a disaster for the Ukrainians. He could drive up prices again with trade wars, or lead the world into a dangerous conflict with China.
But there is just as much chance that he will not be and — whisper it quietly — he might actually do a good job.
We just don’t know yet.
But writing the history books with the early conclusion of a certain disaster helps no one.
Britain has far more to gain from the success of our closest ally — but, my goodness, you would not think it from all the whining.
HOW strange that Hamas managed to crawl out of their filthy tunnels to parade through the streets of Gaza yesterday.
As the ceasefire kicked in, suddenly they were back – posing in their balaclavas and waving machine guns happily on camera.
Shiny trucks were driven around to cheers – and these chaps didn’t exactly look very peckish, despite claims of famine in the pummelled strip.
But why haven’t we seen images like this over the past year?
It’s almost as if the terrorists have been hiding amid the civilian population . . .
Starmer’s choice is coming
LABOUR insists it is a false choice to say Sir Keir Starmer needs to choose between closeness to Donald Trump’s America or forging closer ties with the EU.
But a crunch is coming.
As Nigel Farage told the BBC yesterday: “We’ve got every opportunity for a fantastic relationship with an incoming administration who are Anglophile to their fingertips… but with a Labour Party that is seeking to take us back to the EU, then I’m afraid none of that is going to happen.”
On the PM, Farage, added: “He’s pro-EU; Trump is probably more Eurosceptic than me.”
And as ministers are rapidly discovering, Brussels isn’t going to soften its hatred of Brexit simply because the new team are not those ghastly Tories.
Doors and deals are not magically unlocked without a price, and the EU will demand full alignment on a slew of rules if the UK wants checks further softened.
Alignment to those rules all but scuppers any future UK trade deal with the US.
Starmer may not like the choice, but it’s clear as day it is coming.
