Six reasons why Winston Churchill would have been appalled by Donald Trump
Donald Trump may regard Winston Churchill as a hero, but there are plenty of signs that Britain’s wartime leader would have had little respect for the current US President
Donald Trump has a bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office and likes to compare himself to the man widely regarded as the greatest Briton of all time. If only bronze could talk or even raise an eyebrow.
It is, of course, a matter of speculation as to what Churchill would have made of him. However, with Trump in the UK for his second state visit, it’s worth pondering.
For while Churchill had his flaws, when weighed against his moral courage, determination and rhetorical skill in rallying the UK to the defence of freedom during our ‘darkest hour’ in 1940, he is more than redeemed. The differences between Trump and Churchill are profound, and here are just six.
‘Order of the Boot’
First, Churchill was deeply committed to democracy, joking famously that “it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time...”
He was prepared to accept defeat, losing elections five times as a candidate, while winning 16. After the Conservatives lost the 1945 general election, King George offered him the Order of the Garter. He declined, saying: “How can I accept the Order of the Garter, when the people of England have just given me the Order of the Boot?”
What a contrast with Trump’s petulant insistence that he had won the 2020 US election, lies about vote rigging and exhortations to his supporters to “fight like hell” before they stormed the US Capitol.
Second, unlike Trump, Churchill was a firm believer in the free market. In a thunderous speech to Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1904, the future Prime Minister said the UK was a global trading giant “because our harbours are freer than the harbours of any other nation, because the perverted ingenuity of man has not been occupied in obstructing the fair-ways [with] fiscal stake-nets and tariff mudbars”.
On the other hand, Trump spuriously claims that William McKinley, US President from 1897 to 1901, “made our country very rich through tariffs”.
‘Abyss of a new dark age’
Third, Churchill is famous for refusing to seek peace with Hitler. In June 1940, he told the Commons: "If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands; but if we fail then the whole world, including the United States, and all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age...”
In the starkest of contrasts, the real modern-day Churchill, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, found himself shamefully upbraided in the White House for having the temerity to defend his country against another mass-murdering dictator, Vladimir Putin.
“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three,” Trump told him. Those who wanted peace with Hitler in 1940 said much the same.
Fourth, Churchill was a committed internationalist. In a 1946 speech at Zurich University, he urged people to “build and fortify” the United Nations and “re-create the European family” by establishing “the United States of Europe”.
The reason? “The salvation of the common people of every race and every land from war and servitude must be established on solid foundations, and must be created by the readiness of all men and women to die rather than to submit to tyranny.”
Trump appears to dislike the European Union almost as much as Putin, while the US has announced withdrawals from the World Health Organisation, United Nations’ cultural body Unesco and the Paris Agreement on climate change.
‘Truth is incontrovertible’
Fifth, on Wednesday, Channel 4 will broadcast a programme called Trump v The Truth, “an unbroken catalogue of over 100 falsehoods, distortions and inaccuracies uttered or written by the US President since taking office in January” with “text-based fact-checks, offering viewers the truth”.
Churchill was blunt about Britain’s plight in 1940, famously telling the Commons “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. He later wrote in his memoirs: “United wishes and goodwill cannot overcome brute facts. Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is.”
Sixth, at the start of the First World War, Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty but, on being demoted following the Gallipoli disaster, he resigned from the government and volunteered to fight, becoming a Lieutenant Colonel in the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. He was no desk officer.
“Winston led by example, often venturing into No Man's Land on night patrol. One companion relayed, ‘He never fell when a shell went off; he never ducked when a bullet went past with its loud crack...’” according to America’s National Churchill Museum.
Churchill himself said that “courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because, as has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others”.
Mocking a war hero
Trump, on the other hand, avoided being drafted for the Vietnam War officially because of a bone spur on his foot. However his former fixer Michael Cohen claimed this was a fake problem and that Trump had told him: “You think I'm stupid, I wasn't going to Vietnam.”
Trump also mocked the late Senator John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, for being regarded as a hero. “I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said. Easy to avoid, if you don’t go in the first place.
As Trump is expediently lauded with all the pomp and splendour the UK can muster, we should remember who he really is: a danger to democracy, a fool, a liar and a coward who mocks the brave.
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