AFTER the elections of Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, I thought that America would’ve had its fill of cartoonishly awful presidents. However, the growing adulation towards Donald Trump is making me wonder if a portion of Americans have resigned themselves to being permanent ticket-holders for the most xenophobic show on earth. In truth, I can’t help but feel sorry for sane voters in the United States who must be despairing, and perhaps downright mortified, that a man as garish as Donald Trump is in the running to be leader of the free world. This is the Year of the Monkey, and I’m pretty sure some Americans would rather have a chimpanzee running the White House than Donald Trump!

In my view, what makes Donald so abhorrent to rational Americans is that he represents none of the qualities he claims his country should be proud of: freedom, rights for all, the alleged “American Dream”. Trump is no more a self-made champion of liberty than any of the present Westminster establishment. Trump didn’t come from nothing – he was given, as he puts it, “a small loan of $1 million” from his father. Although there’s nothing emphatically wrong with coming from money, pretending to embody working-class values is as dishonest as it is shameful. A man like Trump has never lived like the majority of the citizens he hankers to rule, nor has he aided their ranks – Trump simply expanded a gluttony empire to satisfy his own money-junkie inclinations.

However, Trump is proof that money can’t buy you decency, common sense or a decent haircut, so why are so many Americans entranced by it? It’s quite bizarre that America, an allegedly proud republic, seems to be enthroning a ruling class resembling a perverse form of monarchy. The Bush and Clinton families are as synonymous with the White House as the Windsors are with the British crown, and Trump looks to extend this list to include the USA’s large consortium of unethical capitalists. This adds to the already bitter irony of Trump’s popularity with Christian conservatives: a fact that is baffling considering his regime is about as compatible with Jesus’ teachings as Jeremy Corbyn’s views are with Blairites. Trump has stated that he has a “great relationship with God”. I suppose when you’ve offended all your real friends, you need to start making imaginary ones!

That said, the God-and-guns presidents of the past at least had the decency to wait until they’d been sworn in before declaring battle. Seemingly frustrated by this red tape, “The Donald” has been picking fights with those who disagree with him for years. However, these political skirmishes have been frequently fruitless. You only have to look at Trump’s moronic mêlées in Scotland to see what an acrimonious buffoon he really is. Americans would do well to note that the man has already been laughed out of our country by linksmen and lawmen alike. All The Donald’s money and all The Donald’s men couldn’t make him likeable in Scotland again!

Trump’s response to these overseas defeats was to toss the toys out of the pram and make idle threats. If this is how he responds to a relatively minor dispute as a businessman, how do you think he would react with a wealth of nuclear weapons at his disposal? Moreover, if Trump stands by his own logic on outsiders, surely he should acknowledge that he wasn’t born in Scotland and therefore has no place trying to involve himself in Scottish affairs? Frankly, Donald Trump calling our former First Minister an “embarrassment to Scotland” is hardly injurious when you consider Trump is an unequivocal embarrassment to mankind.

In so fervently decrying immigrants, Trump has not only shown himself to be a bad American, but a bad human, too. If Trump was running for any sort of respectable profession and had voiced such intolerant views on his CV, he’d have been chased out of the building and denounced as a racist. So, what is it about running for president that grants Trump immunity to such a label? When you think about it, Trump’s potential term of office could make America so unpleasant that foreigners – immigrants or otherwise – simply won’t want to go there.

Undeniably, Trump’s continuously crass comments regarding Muslims are utterly deplorable, and make you wonder if there’s worse to come from this egomaniac. Registering and monitoring anyone of the Islamic faith coupled with aggressive foreign policy and a neurotic desire to expand America’s military is a recipe for disastrous global consequences. When you add in Trump’s commercial empire and casual attitude towards detention, torture and police brutality, you can see why many on the planet are desperate to shut him down before his corporate Armageddon machine reaches maximum power.

What was once a far-fetched joke on The Simpsons may now become a horrifying reality. I believe that the controversial petition and subsequent debate regarding banning Donald Trump from the United Kingdom stems from a gut reaction that something must be done to halt the rise of this unquestionably negative and destructive force in the world. Whether or not a ban is warranted remains up for discussion – but I believe those in favour are instinctively aware that we are dealing with a man who could make Rumsfeld and Cheney look like a couple of Care Bears.

Alex Salmond: Donald Trump is too chicken to debate