Donald Trump has concluded a week of weird speeches and rallies by telling his supporters, "meep meep," and then then disappearing in a cloud of dust with a Donald-Trump-shaped hole left in a nearby wall, pointing in the direction of Scotland.
Yes, Scotland, that's where the Trump show is headed next. He'll spend the weekend there promoting golf courses. Trump is still, as far as anyone knows, running for president. But what if he comes back and is like, "eh, I liked the golf courses better than campaigning. Gonna focus on those from now on. Bye."
Alas, that's probably too much to hope for. As pleasant as it is to have Trump out of America, everyone across the pond seems to REALLY want him out of Scotland.
It's hard to find anyone in Scotland with something nice to say about Donald, starting with his neighbors. Two of the folks who live next to Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course are flying Mexican flags in "solidarity with the Mexican people and anyone else Trump has decried, insulted, intimidated and lied about primarily during his campaign."
And ohhhh man, that golf course. According to the Guardian, the Trump International Golf Course Scotland is losing a million dollars a year; and despite claims from Trump that he'd employ between 1,200 and 7,000 people,there are under 200 workers there. The local council let him bulldoze dunes of "special scientific interest" to build the thing, and a lot of the construction was done before Trump had obtained planning permission.
When neighbors refused to sell their land to him, Trump built a fence on his property to block the neighbors' view, then sent them a bill for it. "It ain't getting paid," said one neighbor, a standoff that bodes well for Trump's plans to bill Mexico.
Of course, Trump says that the golfers are still bringing a lot of profitable tourism to the area. And that's why he opposes the construction of off-shore wind turbines — they're so ugly they'll discourage people from golfing, he claimed.
When asked what evidence he has for that, Trump responded, "I am the evidence." Everyone in the room literally laughed at him (it happens at around 21:15 in this video) and "I am the evidence" has since become a minor Scottish political meme, if such things can be said to exist.
Scottish MP Patrick Harvie decided to mock Trump's quote by tweeting an image from the movie "Life of Brian" with "I am the evidence" in a speech bubble superimposed over the scene where everyone is hollering "I'm Brian." Trump didn't find that particularly funny, and filed a complaint that the tweet was "blasphemous."
It's been over 150 years since anyone was punished for blasphemy in Scotland, and Harvie was spared, as he put it, "the Spanish Inquisition."
Other Scottish politicians are similarly unenthusiastic. "Donald Trump can go run up my ribs," said one of them. Let's assume that's a bad thing, and not a sexual euphemism.
Anyway, with Trump out of the country for a while, now's the time for pranks. Let's fill his office with balloons, or cover his cubicle with post-it notes. Ooh, or better yet: let's build a wall to keep him out permanently.
