Monday Motivation

Trump the hater

Donald Trump has addressed Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris in November’s presidential race by announcing his hatred of the pop star.

The former president and Republican nominee wrote on Sunday on his Truth Social platform: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”

Swift five days earlier announced her endorsement of Harris and running mate Tim Walz shortly after the vice-president debated Trump.

In an Instagram post, the 34-year-old singer wrote, “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 presidential election,” adding, “I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”

Ex-congresswoman and frequent Trump political opponent Liz Cheney summed up the typical reaction to Sunday’s post, invoking the title of a Swift song and writing on X: “Says the smallest man who ever lived.”

Meanwhile, Swift on Wednesday evening urged her fans to vote during her acceptance of the Video of the Year award at MTV’s Video Music Awards ceremony in Elmont, New York.

“If you are over 18, please register to vote for something else that’s very important … [the] presidential election,” she said.

Though Trump now says he hates Swift, it wasn’t that long ago that he apparently coveted her endorsement. He posted images generated by artificial intelligence that suggested Swift had endorsed Trump for president in August.

One image showed Swift dressed as Uncle Sam, accompanied with the words, “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.”

The former president also posted deepfakes of young women wearing “Swifties for Trump” shirts on his Truth Social Account, writing, “I accept!”

Swift said Trump’s posts influenced her decision to announce her endorsement.

“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” she wrote on her Instagram. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter.”

A Little Thought:

It is worrying when you think such hatred is from a candidate running for Presidency of the USA.

These are the words you may get from a teenager but certainly not what you would expect from a 78 year old, but then we are talking about Trump so……..

Butterfly review – an important, truthful drama about a transgender child

While there is a sense of touchstones being arranged, Tony Marchant’s drama is delicate, compassionate and moving

Believable and loving ... Max (Callum Booth-Ford), Vicky (Anna Friel) and Stephen (Emmett J Scanlan) in Butterfly. Photograph: ITV

Go upstairs and get changed,” has a special meaning in the Duffy household. Rather than a harried instruction, it is a moment of profound liberation for 11-year-old Max, the central figure in Butterfly (ITV), the new three-part drama from Tony Marchant. He is able to take off his hated school uniform and, in the privacy of his own home, dress as he wishes – like the girl he feels himself to be. But his mother, Vicky (Anna Friel) – torn between the desire to let her son be happy and to protect him – reminds Max: “You’re a boy on the outside. In public, you do what boys do.”

As you might expect from the first mainstream drama about a transgender child who wants to transition, there is a sense of touchstones being arranged. There is grandma Barbara, embodying the older generation’s eye-rolling bafflement and insistence that everything is modern nonsense (“Everyone wants to be different, don’t they?”); there are the bullies, who emerge for quick scenes that don’t conjure the oppressive sense of menace that epitomises schoolyard aggression; and there is the family member (Max’s sister, Lily) who is his shield and sword as he fights his way to gender freedom and represents the power and glory of acceptance.

Beyond these few odd clunks, it is a wonderfully delicate drama that covers new ground carefully and features fully realised characters at war with their instincts, intellects and worse or better natures. It emerges that Max’s dad, Stephen, moved out not because he and Vicky were having problems, as Max initially assumes, but because he could not cope with Max’s increasingly “strange little ways” (to quote Barbara). He is – crucially – not painted as a villain for this. There is a moving scene when Max, in the bath, tells Stephen that he hates his willy. Stephen tries gently to reason him out of it: there is nothing to be done, it will just get bigger and be like Daddy’s and it will be fine. “It gets in the way. I wish it would fall off.” Stephen’s fear and anxiety build through several more exchanges and, in another flashback, we see him driven to knock back Max – dancing in a skirt and a pink jumper – with a slap. It is an awful, sad, authentic and compassionate scene.

The pivotal moment, when the family is pushed out of the fragile compromise they have reached, is when Max – who has wet himself after being unable to bring himself to use the boys’ toilets at school and who sees his mother getting ready to go out on a date – makes a suicide attempt. Stephen moves back to try to make everything – everyone – “normal”. The family is put in touch with a gender counsellor and, in the final scenes, Max comes downstairs in a girls’ school uniform and has his sister announce that he wants to go to school like this from now on and to be known as Maxine. “I feel like I have to,” she says softly. “I feel like I must.” She asks her mother how she looks. “You look lovely,” she says tearfully. “Do you think I’m ready?” Maxine asks. “I don’t know, I’m sorry. I don’t know.” Stephen is beside himself with anger, grief and fear. And so they must find a way to go on.

It will be interesting to discover how many of the issues and controversies surrounding trans identity, activism and the politics of transitioning – especially in the case of children – Marchant will cover. Unpicking such a complex web of feelings, facts and ideologies would be daunting for any dramatist. But Marchant’s record of successfully delving into knotty social and family problems (take Goodbye Cruel World, about degenerative illness) and examinations of modern masculinity (Take Me Home, The Mark of Cain, Different for Girls) is unmatched.

The most striking and important thing about the first episode was how much care was taken to create a believable, loving family. The relationship between modern parents and their knowing but vulnerable children has rarely been better captured than in the exchange between Vicky and Lily as Stephen returns, with his suitcase, to the marital home. “Taking in lodgers?” says Lily. “Times must be hard.” They grin at each other and go in.

We know them, so we know Max – and so we must come to know Maxine. We must also ask ourselves what we would do in any of these characters’ places. Allied to uniformly brilliant performances, this is truthful, beautiful and powerful stuff.