Scottish union leader's famous 1972 speech provides vital warning about Donald Trump

In the words of former US President Franklin D Roosevelt, Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory will be “a day that will live in infamy”.

Unlike his first presidency, this time around there are reasons to be alarmed as the US President seeks to purge the planet of its humanity, trash the institutions of US and global government, and reduce countries to the status of companies, while seeing the world as a giant Monopoly board of real estate to be bought and sold: Ukraine, Gaza, Greenland, Panama, and Canada.

Trump believes that countries should be run like companies. The market substitutes for democracy, wealth is worth, greed is good and people serve money – an agenda for markets and consumers, not democracies and citizens. Maybe England will be next! He treasures our monarchy and the prospect of a Cornish Riviera and a hostile Britain on the doorstep of the EU could clinch it.

Donald Trump's second term as US President is shaping up to be very different to his first (Picture: Andrew Harnik) | Getty Images

George Washington’s warning

Of real and immediate concern is the rise of the billionaire tech bros keen to extend their grip on power, wealth and information. The dangers are obvious. This is predatory capitalism, where Trump is merely the soulless, but essential, frontman.

Despite warnings about the vulnerability of US politics to an anti-democratic coup, few lessons have been learned. The first president, George Washington, reflecting fears of the Founding Fathers in his farewell address, spoke about the dangers of allowing a single person or minority of elites to undermine fundamental principles. He warned that, in the future, “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people”.

President Dwight D Eisenhower, in his farewell address in 1961, referring to the might of the US military said: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwanted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the ‘military-industrial complex’. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Today, it is technology, not the military.

Joe Biden, in his final speech from the White House, also warned of the dangers ahead, saying: “There is a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few, ultra-wealthy people. There are dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy.”

Return of the robber barons

But the most telling commentary on unaccountable power and threats to democracy came from Mark Twain in 1873. In The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, he described an era that glittered on the surface but was corrupt underneath. This was a time of corruption, conspicuous consumption, unfettered capitalism, and robber barons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John Rockerfeller and JP Morgan. The names have changed but this is Trump’s White House today, not a golden age but a gilded one.

Elon Musk, who just doesn’t seem right, is leading a war against democracy, using free speech in defence of deregulation and market freedom. Like Trump, he is helped by having no sense of remorse.

Donating a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump’s campaign, Musk and other billionaire campaign donors are now seeking payback in the form of low taxes, and minimal or no regulation of business or social media. They are also using Trump to browbeat Europe into submission by arguing for the removal of “digital censorship” and any other form of business or ethical regulation.

Trump’s ‘terror tariffs’

US Vice-President JD Vance, addressing the Munich Security Conference in a speech of breathtaking hypocrisy and thuggish malice last week, attempted to redefine democracy as populism, authoritarianism, isolationism, nationalism and political corruption. Vance’s contempt for the UK and his desire to further the political interests of fellow-traveller Nigel Farage were crudely exhibited.

In the face of this unparalleled assault on Europe, including the UK, political achievements and progressive ideas must be defended. However, the importance of developing a new narrative for a progressive democracy must not be overlooked. Trump’s ‘terror tariff’ tactics may be a deliberate distraction from the main task of dismantling America’s democracy, but the UK and the EU must not bow to the bully.

The rise of the right in Europe, which Musk is keen to encourage, must not divert us from what a civilised world looks like. The EU has a larger population than the US, a larger GDP and remains, despite its ill-informed critics, the most remarkable political institution in the post-war world, with huge unrealised potential.

Trump despises the thought of a strong EU because it is successful, represents everything he hates, and which he privately fears is capable of derailing his assault on the Western world, hence the venom in his remarks.

Trade union leader Jimmy Reid addresses Clyde shipbuilders during an industrial dispute in 1971 (Picture: Allan Milligan) | TSPL

Rat race is for rats

But how do we put Trump’s bleak mindset into stark relief? In a remarkable speech in his inaugural Rectoral address at Glasgow University in 1972, union leader Jimmy Reid: “A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice, lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.

“It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. This is how it starts, and, before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high.”

Remarkably, the New York Times printed his words in full, describing it as “the greatest speech since President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address”.

There is no place for a “rat race” if humanity is to survive. Democracy is not the easiest way forward. But it does provide a template for progress which embraces the moral worth of each individual, the power of the people, and rejects the trampling of others by unelected billionaires, elites and oligarchs whose obsession with money, power and control is dehumanising and destructive.

That’s why Trump and his billionaire tech bros are so dangerous.

Henry Mcleish is a former First Minister