Trump’s tweets are as bizarre as his mad hair – Student Shout

As a 16-year-old who takes some interest in current affairs I feel downhearted by several important developments in recent times. 

The Germans created an interesting compound neologism TumpundBrexit, to describe the sort of blinkered populism producing shock election results.

There have been many recently, but I shall focus on two: Trump and Brexit.

His attitude and his Tweets are as bizarre as his hairstyle, but, whether we like it or not, he shapes the nature of our world.

I wish to express my disquiet at the growth of a worrying type of aggressive and ill-founded nostalgia.

In the States, Trump was elected on an unthinking surge of nationalism, with the new president wrapping himself and his country in the stars and stripes. Anyone who disagrees with him, anyone who dares criticise him openly, is accused of being un-American, unpatriotic and close to being a traitor. 

Closer to home, we heard countless speeches from ardent Brexiteers littered with references to a Great Britain that was truly great, unencumbered by those immigrants and policies concocted over the English Channel and beyond.

To them, we must go back to this marvellous England defined by whiteness, rolling hills, imperial might and the anthem Jerusalem!

It’s a Great Britain that, let’s face it, has never truly existed.

As a 16-year-old, I feel like screaming: ‘Stop looking back, stop regretting, stop imagining past history, stop looking at your political belly-button.’ 

We, the young, the real future of our nations, want openness, not closed doors, internationalism, not ridiculous jingoism, idealism, not cynicism, tolerance, not xenophobia.

We can be patriots and European and citizen of the world. 

Seb Filho is a pupil at Portsmouth Grammar School