This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.
With Donald Trump winning primaries in five more US states on Tuesday, it now looks highly likely that he’s going to be the Republican nominee for November’s presidential election. He wants a giant wall built between the USA and Mexico, a mass deportation of illegal immigrants and to criminalise abortion in one way or another, while economists say his election would be a prodigious threat to world order. Accordingly, loads of people think he’s the best thing since sliced bread, and are ready to elect him post-haste.
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So would a Trump election win be that bad, really? Sure, the majority of his supporters seem like the sort of people who would cheer lustily at a public hanging, but does that actually make him a bad guy? Does he even mean half the things he says? And what would Trump’s presidency mean for the rest of the world?
Well – as for the last question – recent developments at his Turnberry golf course might give you some idea.
Councillors on the South Ayrshire Licensing Board have just approved plans for Turnberry staff to serve members alcohol from a modified golf buggy, between the hours of 10am and 10pm. However, according to the Daily Record, the licensing board refused an application to allow the Turnberry hotel and outside areas to serve booze until 2am – a plan which would have seen the resort sell alcohol for 16 hours a day.
Let’s face it, that’s a bit excessive. Presiding councillor Alan Dorrans said of the request: “I would not be happy granting these hours to anyone.” His colleague Andy Campbell clarified that “one of the reasons given was to take in the views, but the views are limited after 10pm.” Of course they are, it’s the middle of the night for God’s sake. Some of the country’s biggest nightclubs have stopped serving at 2am, while it’s kicking out time at even the grottiest pubs. So why should a genteel golf course on the west coast of Scotland be serving beers out of a buggy at two in the morning?
Is this Trump’s vision for our society? Because if so, it’s a terrifying one.
Imagine a world where Trump’s golf empire allows for 16 hours of drinking each day, every day. Where buggies overloaded with cans of Tennent’s trundle over the gently rolling hills, delivering tinnies directly into the hands of corpulent business executives on all-expenses-paid golfing holidays. Hordes of smashed billionaires wander the Scottish hillsides, teeing off at random before fumbling for another drink in the darkness. Behind them trail a legion of long-suffering caddies, most of whom are resignedly trying to scrub the vomit out of their Argyle jumpers.
If Trump becomes President of the USA, will the South Ayrshire Licensing Board dare to oppose his plans for incessant boozing? When the majority of his business rivals have been wiped out by a terrible alcoholism epidemic, what then? Trump will be able to commission as many giant walls as he wants, because he’ll have invited all the world leaders to Turnberry and they’ll be too pissed to notice. By the time Xi Jinping has shaken off his appalling hangover, the Chinese Communist Party will be sponsored by Trump Winery.
In essence, Turnberry golf course could be the epicentre of a global political overhaul. If Trump is victorious in November and the South Ayrshire Licensing Board crumbles before his might, he will be unstoppable.
And if that’s his vision for the west coast of Scotland, just imagine what he’s got planned for America.
