Donald Trump's love for the English royal family
One of President Donald Trump's earliest memories, as he has told journalists and biographers time and again, is of a day when he saw his mother so enthralled in front of the television that she barely moved for hours. It was June 2, 1953, the day Queen Elizabeth was crowned.
He was only 6 years old, but he understood that that lavish spectacle that happened more than 5471 kilometers in Westminster Abbey touched the heart of his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, a poor girl who had immigrated from Scotland and worked for a time. as a maid in a stately mansion. He also understood that, for some reason, that very sight offended his father.
“I also remember my father pacing impatiently from one place to another that day: 'For God's sake, Mary,' she told him. 'It's enough. Turn that off. They're a bunch of scammers, '"Trump recalled years later. “My mother didn't even look up. They were totally opposite in that sense.
Trump recounts this anecdote in his book The Art of Negotiation as an explanation of why he did not settle for inheriting the business from his father. His mother had given him a love for the spectacle and the majesty as illustrated by the coronation, a ceremony of "sublime dreams" that projected "splendor and magnificence."
The story also explains why this week's visit to the United Kingdom matters to the American president, who throughout his life has expressed a desire to be close to, or on the same level as, the British royal family.
"This is more important than any bill I can pass in Congress, bigger than solving problems on the border with Mexico," said Michael D'Antonio, author of The Truth About Trump, a 2016 biography. it will be one of your last thoughts before you die. When he is about to leave this world, he will think: 'I was that man who was with the queen.'
Trump likes to declare that he does not respect most people because "most do not deserve respect," said D 'Antonio, who said he had interviewed Trump for nearly eight hours.
"The queen may be one of the few people who could expect Trump's respect," he said. “He is sincere. He is very sincere when it comes to British royalty. "
Trump arrived in London on Monday morning and brought the controversy with him. He's a very divisive figure in the UK, where 67 per cent of people who responded to a recent YouGov poll said something negative about him and just 21 per cent approved of it. Trump, who supports a 'hard Brexit', has already rejected any pretense of diplomacy by giving interviews to The Sun and The Times of London in which he has expressed his support for Boris Johnson's campaign to be Theresa May's successor and , in response to an interviewer's question, has described Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, as a "disgusting" woman because she criticized him in 2016.
However, the royal family has a lot of experience hosting contentious characters, said Andrew Morton, author of several royal biographies. The queen is expected to be neutral on political issues, so she will steer clear of divisive issues.
"They don't tend to take positions or try not to," Morton said.
But in some cases, he added, "they think they can have some influence." Prince Charles, for example, may try to persuade Trump on the climate change issue, Morton said. The prince has the power to extend invitations to the next coronation, he added.
Thomas Wright, a senior scholar at the Brookings Institution, said that, in the past, private conversations with "iconic individuals" have left a mark on Trump's mindset.
"If the queen says something to her, she might take it to heart," he said. "She will probably tell everyone."
In a way, it's curious that Trump's mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was so sympathetic to the monarchy.
Their ancestors were left in poverty and evicted from their farms after Scottish lords backed by the English seized their lands, an event known as the Expulsion from the Highlands, writes Nina Burleigh in Golden Handcuffs: The Secret History of Trump's Women.
Trump's mother, the youngest of ten children, set sail for the United States around 1930, and informed US immigration officials that she had studied until the eighth grade. In her later years, she displayed a taste for luxury, which her son happily indulged, said Gwenda Blair, author of The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire. Trump's mother died at age 88 in 2000.
As a real estate developer and television personality, Trump seemed to regard the royal family as a prestigious benchmark. In the 1980s, a rumor circulated that Prince Charles and his wife, Diana, were considering acquiring an apartment in Trump Tower, D'Antony wrote in his book.
In 1997, shortly after Diana's death in a car accident, Trump told television journalist Stone Phillips that he regretted not asking her out of it. "You really think you had a chance with her?" Phillips asked.
"Yes, I think so," Trump replied. "I always have a chance."
Trump also hoped to acquire some of the traits of royalty. Morton, Diana's biographer, recalled that he gave a speech about the princess around this time at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club. One of the club's managers asked him if he could help Trump hire Paul Burrell, who had worked as Queen Elizabeth's lackey and Diana's butler.
The two families couldn't be more different, Morton said.
"I would say that Trump has more 'royal' customs than the queen," he said, adding that the president had a "ostentatious lifestyle, while the British royal family is known for its restraint. It is well known that the queen collects yarn and that her breakfast is served in Tupperware containers. "
"What amazes me about people around the world is that if they interact in any way with the monarch, that defines their lives," Morton said. "They keep the invitation, they keep the train ticket, they keep the article in the newspaper."
The same will happen with Trump, he concluded.
