Hugely-respected American novelist Philip Roth wrote recently in the New Yorker magazine the following words: “I was born in 1933, the year that F.D.R. was inaugurated. He was president until I was 12-years-old. I’ve been a Roosevelt Democrat ever since. I found much that was alarming about being a citizen during the tenures of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. But, whatever I may have seen as their limitations of character or intellect, neither was anything like as humanly impoverished as Trump is: ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency, and wielding a vocabulary of seventy-seven words that is better called Jerkish than English.”
And just when you think our respect for Donald Trump couldn’t go any lower, the newly elected Commander-in-Chief unleashes this.
Speaking at a Black History Month event which – and you may have guessed this from the title, which is more than Trump did – is designed to celebrate and remember Black History, the new US President managed to make the speech about himself instead.
Opening up by literally mentioning that he has a black friend, he follows it by going off-topic about Martin Luther King to criticise the press, praising social reformer Frederick Douglass as “somebody who’s done an amazing job that is being recognised more and more” (he died in 1895), then criticised CNN, then called them ‘fake news’ (of course), then rambling on about how everything is terrible.
Here’s the speech in full. It’s breathtaking.
And in case you don’t believe that’s real, here it is to watch:
Needless to say, it didn’t go down well.
We genuinely wouldn’t rule out Trump copying David Brent’s thoughts for his next speech.