If Only They Didn't Speak English: Notes From Trump's America

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You might have thought that what an individual chooses to ingest to alter his or her consciousness was his or her own affair. Despite many thousands of people dying from gun violence each year, and the incidence of mass shootings happening with alarming frequency, Mr Sopel predicts that the US will never give up its guns. He has reported from all around the world, of course, but he is correct in saying that we could understand the US better if we consider it as the foreign country that it undoubtedly is to us. The frontier mentality induces a certain degree of self-reliance in many Americans that many in Western Europe would simply not recognise, leaving many such tasks to the local council or central government – clearing the pavement of snow, for example. Sopel doesn't take aim at Trump or at Clinton, he doesn't lambast the poor coverage or the role of social media and he doesn't reduce Americans down to thoughtless fools.

On the other hand, the inhabitants of the US bump each other off with guns to the tune of some 30’000 a year, but the population as a whole doesn’t seem to be upset about this. Despite of all the Right Acts, the fact is that many African Americans still have no driving licence. Beginning and ending with chapters that explain the Trump presidency, such as the anger that got him into power and a new chapter on the first year of chaos in the White House (as well as the surprising resurgence in economic prosperity), there are chapters on religion, race, guns, patriotism, pharmacological abuse and big government. He lets loose on Conservative Christianity, race, mass shootings, isolationism, the media and the role of government. The National Rifle Association is too powerful, and has too strong a hold over politicians in Washington, and the US population – where guns in circulation outnumber people to own them – are too wedded to their machinery and its embeddness in the constitution, however distorted its interpretation might have been.At its core this book is about what he has learnt from acting as the BBC's North America Editor for around five years, through turbulent times in US politics including the surfacing of Donald Trump, his campaign and his arrival in the White House as President. Jon Sopel dissects our misunderstandings of US thought, their fundamental assumptions, background philosophy. Because they know exceptions to the governmental rules and the knowledge of it makes their profession lucrative.

He details the history of the US relationship with the truth, with guns and with God (to name but a few), making clear that what seems so foreign and bizarre to a British audience, is not so far out of the norm across the pond. In actual fact, the French or Germans are probably a lot closer to the British mindset than the Americans; it’s just that most people can’t understand them when they are speaking their native tongue. Sopel) who praised the above-mentioned act to the skies, the populace had no idea, that in reality only in 1968 the Fair Housing Act banned discrimination in the sale, rental and financing property. One of my favourite parts was when an American described the UK as, “socialist and overly governed…” It just shows that there are misunderstandings on both sides and anything which can help two countries, which share so much, understand each other more, has to be a good thing. When he asks her if she’s okay, she says yes so he tells her he’ll talk to her later and hangs up so he can go back to listening to the political conversation: “Maybe not my finest hour in concerned parenting…but, hey, the tennis was great.A well written account of the things that Jon Sopel really likes about the USA which, thankfully, chimes perfectly with what I've found, travelling there for around ten years. Huge industries and amounts of money are thrown at this problem which kills a mere handful of people annually.

Mr Sopel seeks to describe and explain the strong emotions running through each of these elements of American society and the good or ill they provoke. There are some fascinating comparisons between America, the UK and Europe and Sopel has weaved in entertaining and authentic anecdotes about his time living and working in Washington.There are other mildly interesting sections on access to medical help (little new here), pharmaceutical advertising (something I witnessed myself and was staggered by on a recent visit) and the American view on what the state should do for individuals versus what they should take responsibility for themselves.

Instead, he explains, in a humorous and engaging fashion, what it is that makes the USA a place where a person like Trump could be elected. This was easy to read, as the style lends itself very much to the pace and intonation of a typical BBC foreign correspondent; all the more so as I had heard some sections as an audio book (read by Jon Sopel, possibly a better choice than reading it yourself? He reminds us that President Trump's "America First" policy is nothing new – but that America made an invaluable contribution to Western Europe's defence of its liberty in two world wars. If you are an American who wants to get a glimpse of your culture through the eyes of the British, Jon Sopel’s If Only They Didn’t Speak English: Notes from Trump’s America might interest you. Though Americans may see this as an America-bashing book, to my mind it does an excellent job of pointing out the differences between the USA and the UK, including those instances where he feels Americans and America are superior.While the examples in the book and the headings are (of course) cherry-picked to emphasise the differences, and anyone who knows even a few Americans will realise that there are worlds of difference between individuals, just as in any country, one comes away with the impression that American society (and by extension, many of the individuals who comprise that society) is, by British standards, more than a little eccentric – maybe even completely bonkers in places. He is the author of If Only They Didn't Speak English: Notes from Trump's America and A Year at the Circus: Inside Trump's White House . In another section, he also compares and contrasts the elaborate precautions that the USA takes when the President moves around, compared with the seemingly casual nature of British security around the Prime Minister (there’s a lovely anecdote of John Major in a roadside café).