DOES Trump’s face tell us anything? His bandaged ear tells us he was shot, but what about the face itself? Jowls, lower lip stuck out like a cranky baby. You might be tempted to say it’s a face that only a mother could love, but you’d be wrong.

Tens of thousands of Americans near-worship Trump and his face, even more since God intervened and had that bullet nick his ear. Nobody suggests that was God intent on getting him to shut up and listen; instead they see his survival as meaning he has (altogether now) God On His Side. 

On this side of the Atlantic, much used be made of the similarities between Trump and Boris Johnson – the blond hair, the total lack of consistency, the promises and lies, the look of a man ever on the make. But there’s an even better comparison closer to home. Step forward, Jim Allister.

At first glance there’s little similarity. Trump is big and heavy, whereas Jim is small and stocky. Trump is a multi-millionaire, while Jim isn’t known to be wildly wealthy. 

But Jim and Donald share that petulant lower lip – the lip of a man cheesed off with and contemptuous of just about everyone. 

And both men do nostalgia. Donald’s electoral appeal is in his promise to take things back and make America great again. Note that word ‘again’. America once was mom and apple pie, and Donald assures the electorate that all that will somehow return. It won’t of course, but Donald spins an appealing version of yesteryear. 

Jim too promises a better tomorrow, when things can be the same as yesterday. When NEI’s place in the UK was secure and sound, when there was a unionist party that was backed by the Orange Order and Catholics gratefully lined up to listen to the wonderful music on the Twelfth, and when the border was where it should be, protecting all right-thinking people in the North from the perfidious South. 

Like Trump, much of the danger preached by Jim is a convenient political tool for binding together his followers. But in one area, Jim speaks a truth which may dismay some and amuse others, but like it or lump it, it’s true. Constantly in his speeches, Jim talks about the creation of an economically-united Ireland as a forerunner of a politically united Ireland, and Jim tooth and nail opposes both.

His political foes will point out that any constitutional change can only come about when the majority of people in NEI vote for it. True.

Slippery Slope

But an all-Ireland economic unit will, Jim warns, put us on the slippery slope to a united Ireland. Many nationalists point out to him that’s daft talk, there can be no change in NEI’s constitutional position except a majority north and south want it and vote for it.  True. But Jim has still got it right.

Look at the EU. In early days it was the EEC – the European Common Market, with goods and services freely moving from one part to another. Now it’s the European Union (EU), with ever-greater political integration and talk of developing an EU army. 

Or look at Germany. In the nineteenth century Bismarck first established that country as a free trade system between neighbouring states, and from there went on to create modern-day Germany. 

Both Jim and Donald promise their citizens a rosy future. Donald preaches that the people and places currently suffering will be transformed (somehow) if he’s elected. What Jim appeals to is the common or garden unionist who remembers a gilded time  when Twelfth parades were Twelfth parades. When the south of Ireland knew its place and all of us in the Province had either an overt or secret love for the Orange Order. 

There’s just one big difference: if we’re to believe the polls, Trump at present has more followers than his political opponents have. With Jim, alas, while many unionists share his hardline attitude about the dangers of economic unity, not nearly so many are prepared to vote for him or his party. And in the end it’s votes that get counted, stupid.