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Scotland got Trumped

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You've Been Trumped
Art: David McCue

For a quiet, reasoned discussion of the issues, it’s hard to beat Bill Moyers on PBS. Even the program’s set is quiet — two people seated at a simple oak table against a pastoral backdrop. No scrolling chyrons, no multicolored, constantly changing images on the back wall.

The guest today on “Moyers & Company” was Anthony Baxter, producer of the new documentary You’ve Been Trumped. It’s about Donald Trump and his building of “the world’s greatest golf course” in northeast Scotland. As if money could create another St. Andrews.

I’ve nothing good to say about Trump; I think he’s disgusting. He represents everything bad about the worst of the egotistical, power-hungry, self-promoting one-percenters in this country. And not surprisingly, abroad, he makes other ugly Americans look positively beautiful by comparison; he’s an ugly American with Big Bucks.

Baxter tells how Trump decided to build his golf course in the dunes along the Scottish coast, and anyone who got in his way got steamrolled. Residents who just happened to live — sometimes for generations — where Trump wanted to build were bullied and bought out. In one instance, several homeowners on a hill overlooking the course refused to acquiesce. Trump thought their homes spoiled the view from his course, so he ordered giant earthen berms built on his property to hide them. Never mind that the berms blocked the homeowners’ view of the sea.

Trump bullied or paid off a company that planned to build wind turbines in the ocean near the golf course. They would spoil Trump’s view, and besides, he doesn’t believe in global warming, ecology, and all that nonsense. And he didn’t care that construction of the golf course destroyed the dunes in one of Europe’s most environmentally sensitive stretches of coast, described by one scientist as Scotland’s Amazon rain forest.

To top it all off, Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University granted Trump an honorary doctorate, “for his ability to make money,” said Baxter. A big enough endowment can buy most anything, apparently.

Is it any wonder so much of the world hates us? No appreciation for the history and culture of other countries. Thinking money entitles us to do anything we want anywhere we want. One percent of us, anyway. Perhaps the story of Trump in Scotland is not as bad as Baxter makes it sound, but judging from Trump’s behavior here at home, I doubt Baxter was exaggerating.

I’m torn between wanting to see this much-heralded film, and skipping it because I already know how it ends. It was Trump. With a wallet. In the dunes.

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The interview:

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The trailer:

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6 thoughts on “Scotland got Trumped”

  1. Ah, Donald Trump, probably the world’s most notorious birther. His hubris is indeed common among the 1%. Others I can think of include Leona Helmsley, Martha Stewart and Sheldon Adelson. I think wealth went to Tiger Woods’ head as well, judging from the size of his yacht and his disdain of the press. I am happy to note however that wealth and fame doesn’t have to have such an effect: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Robert Redford and Michael Bloomberg.

    Nice essay, PT.

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  2. It’s a disgusting project… I’m sure the movie will make me feel what I already feel about Trump, but it better have something in there about how the governments — local and national — played a role as well.

    It’s not just the money, it’s also about who takes the money.

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  3. Hmmmpphh… I had not heard about this movie, nor that golf course. Ugh, Trump is such an embarrassment to our country. I just hope a lot of people realize that he is not the norm. Trump is nothing but a maggot and I wish he would crawl back under the rock from which he came.

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    1. I hadn’t heard about the movie before now, and only some vague old news about the golf course. It all just makes me even angrier with him than I was before.

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... and that's my two cents