Trump by David McCue

“The only difference between you and Michael Douglas from the movie Wall Street is that no one is going to be sad when you get cancer”
—Anthony Jeselnik speaks the unvarnished truth at the Comedy Central “roast” of Donald Trump.

Have you seen the new documentary You’ve Been Trumped? It will make your blood boil. It’s been three days since Tara and I watched it, and we’ve not stopped talking about it and how much we both hate Donald Trump’s guts.

Writing at The Arts Desk, Graeme Thomson puts it better than I could:

It has never been easier to get sucked into a warm, simplistic sensibility which portrays every rich capitalist businessman as corrupt and amoral, but you spend 90 minutes watching Donald Trump in action and you start to wonder. If Trump didn’t exist you suspect Martin Amis would invent him. He would probably call his caricature of a dastardly US business tycoon Donald Shit.

As a resident of Manhattan for the majority of the 1980s, I had a head-start on most people hating Trump, the overconfident, born-rich dickhead once so delightfully described during that decade as a “thick-fingered vulgarian” by SPY magazine.

I’ve actually had several occasions over the years when I’ve been around The Donald at parties and movie openings and stuff like that, but the only time that really rises to the level of an actual anecdote was sometime in the late 80s, I was leaving the opening of a new nightclub (I think it was called “The Apartment”) on Canal Street and bounding down the staircase as Trump and his bodyguards were making their way up. I would have chest-thumped Trump except for this totally boss move he made that was so arrogant—and yet so perfectly “Trumpian”—whereby he simply took one arm—almost like he was swimming—and pushed me aside with an oh-so-graceful movement (one he’d perfected). He didn’t even think about, that’s how ingrained it is in his worldview that he comes first. Not a grunt of apology, nothing. My friend and I just looked at each other and laughed out loud. It was too funny to take offense at.

Me, I’ve always hated Donald Trump to begin with, but after seeing this film, I’d imagine that even the most mild-mannered folk would be braying for his head on the end of a stick. You can’t help but wish daggers on him as you watch You’ve Been Trumped. He’s a horrible, loathsome, mythical shit of a man. I don’t think any other reaction is even humanly possible. Gandhi would have wanted to spit in Trump’s face, at the very least, if he was alive to see this film. Mother Theresa herself would want to throttle the motherfucker. Trump’s an appalling human being, I think most people would agree, but this film… WOW. It’s a must see. One of the most essential documentaries made in the past few years.

Released in a limited run in August, Anthony Baxter’s film, a festival favorite for obvious reasons, was screened on BBC2 last week and has been widely seen the world over in subsequent days via torrent trackers. You’ve Been Trumped is a riveting film, lauded by the likes of Michael Moore, Bill Moyers and unsurprisingly, Rosie O’Donnell. The word of mouth about the film is strong, so strong that a VOD distributor should pick it up for US release and get it out there pronto. There’s money being left on the table.

Here’s how the film is described in the press materials:

In this David and Goliath story for the 21st century, a group of proud Scottish homeowners take on a celebrity tycoon. At stake is one of Britain’s very last stretches of wilderness.  

American billionaire Donald Trump has bought up hundreds of acres on the northeast coast of Scotland, best known to movie-lovers as the setting for the 1983 classic film Local Hero. And like the American oil tycoon played by Burt Lancaster, he needs to buy out a few more locals to make the deal come true.  In a land swimming with golf courses, Trump is going to build two more – alongside a 450-room hotel and 1,500 luxury homes. The trouble is, the land he has purchased occupies one of Europe’s most environmentally sensitive stretches of coast, described by one leading scientist as Scotland’s Amazon rain forest. And the handful of local residents don’t want it destroyed. 

After the Scottish Government overturns its own environmental laws to give Trump the green light, the stage is set for an extraordinary summer of discontent, as the bulldozers spring into action. Water and power is cut off, land disputes erupt, and some residents have thousands of tonnes of earth piled up next to their homes. Complaints go ignored by the police, who instead arrest the film’s director, Anthony Baxter.  Local exasperation comes to a surreal head as the now “Dr”  Trump scoops up an honorary doctorate from a local university, even as his tractors turn wild, untouched dunes into fairways.  

Told entirely without narration, You’ve Been Trumped captures the cultural chasm between the glamorous, jet-setting and media savvy Donald Trump and a deeply rooted Scottish community.  What begins as an often amusing clash of world views grows increasingly bitter and disturbing.  For the tycoon, the golf course is just another deal, with a possible billion dollar payoff.  For the residents, it represents the destruction of a globally unique landscape that has been the backdrop for their lives.  

Funny, inspiring and heartbreaking in turns, You’ve Been Trumped  is both an entertaining, can’t-believe-it’s-true tale and an environmental parable for our celebrity driven times.  A moving score features music from jónsi, the internationally acclaimed musician and frontman of Sigur Ros.  The film also offers a rare and revealing glimpse of the unfiltered Donald Trump, as he considers standing as a candidate for President of the United States.

But it’s not just Donald Trump’s piggish behavior in the film that is so off-the scale-sickening, it’s also the way the obsequious Scottish politicians lick his arrogant ass clean that will turn your stomach. HOW can these pols survive politically after this film exposes them for the fucking fools they are? You’ll wish death on Trump—trust me, you will—but these Caledonian shite-heads deserve to have their asses handed back to them on plates by an ENRAGED population. How many people living in Scotland haven’t seen this film yet? Two or three?

No, really, it’s that mind-boggling. You can get a copy of the You’ve Been Trumped on DVD directly from the filmmaker and You’ve Been Trumped is showing up sporadically in screenings around the country. I guarantee that once you’ve seen it, you’ll be insisting to all of your friends that they see it, too.

Donald Trump proves the film’s point in this characteristic tweet to its director, Anthony Baxter:
 

.@antbaxterYour documentary died many deaths. You have, in my opinion, zero talent.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2012