(Apologies – pun unavoidable)

Image: BBC

Watching Ed Balls bump bellies with Trumpists (Travels in Trumpland with Ed Balls BBC TV) was deeply unsettling. The joy with which they laud their Saviour and their and his  lifestyle is infectious and our Ed was certainly infected. Let’s face it, being a shitkicking redneck has its upside. The guns, the trucks, the booze, the bellies. What fun.

Not to mention the Botox Babes of Miami. Whattt! The overwhelming stench of their overperfumed egos is stifling. I would just love to tip steaming shit over every one of them. Well, that’s the currency of their beliefs, they may well not notice the difference.

Then of course there’s Jesus. Ed missed a trick when he didn’t ask the Rev about the day of Judgement, the Apocalypse and Trump’s perceived role in it. Because I have it on very good authority (an Evangelical Rev in Dallas) that Trump was appointed by God to bring about the end of days. (Can’t bring myself to capitalise utter shit.) (sorry, Utter Shit.).

So there we have it. Let’s all tank up on moonshine (well that’s what the Trumpists do daily, literally and figuratively), gobble our grits with lashings of syrup and stand before god and his avatar, Herr Trumpf, and be judged. So we can all go to hell together.

Sigh. Our only hope is that justice will catch up with him before he drives the world into the concrete wall of his narcissism.

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I have no doubt that Ed remains true to his left-wing roots; I just wish he’d challenged these ghastly views more aggressively – and yes, sure we make a very big mistake not taking the legitimate grievances of the masses seriously enough. Had we done so, there may well have been no Brexit and no Trump. So strange that the liberal left seemed to have deserted the people it was originally meant to help and above all, defend. Many Brexiters are Socialists. And the rump of Trump’s constituency are working class (Balls said the opposite I think. He’s wrong.)

Neo-Liberalism is the enemy. It has allowed the rich to enrich themselves way beyond the dreams of absolute greed. It has empowered soulless corporations to destroy the environment in terrible race for profit. And Globalisation, while it has brought the world closer together, has facilitated this process. We (the masses and we, the bourgeois liberal left-wing intellectuals) agree on the causes and should not be surprised at the success of neo-fascist populism which promises solutions.

It is only when the promised solutions turn out to be deceptions aimed at further enriching the 1% and giving power to demagogues that this horrible trend will end.