A:          You can say all you want about him, what I say is this: Donald Trump isn’t all bad.

B:           No, you’re right there. He isn’t all bad.

A:          I mean – he’s probably not the finest human being.

B:           No.

A:          Far from it.

B:           Indeed.

A:          I mean, going head to head in a competition for virtue against – say – Jesus of Nazareth – let’s face it, the guy is going to come off worst.

B:           Well, he’s younger for a start, isn’t he?

A:          Who, Trump?

B:           No, Jesus. Was younger, I mean. When he died. However temporarily.

A:          Oh yes, Jesus was younger. 33, I believe.

B:           Yeah, and Trump’s what – more than twice that.

B:           So, a lot of these objections are really a kind of ageism really, aren’t they?

A:          Yes, that’s it, ageism. Probably unintentional, but that doesn’t excuse it.

B:           Jesus had better hair too.

A:          Really?

B:           Oh yes. Similar blondey kind of colour, but kind of silky and long.

A:          Bit of a hippy though. Trump’s not a hippy, I’ll say that for him.

B:           He did dodge the draft though.

A:          What?

B:           Yeah, refused to fight in Vietnam.

A:          Oh well, there’s something, for a start. A principled stand on something. Let’s face it, most people think that the Vietnam war was a very bad idea. All that napalm and stuff.

B:           Well, yes, except that wasn’t why he didn’t fight.

A:          Oh?

B:           No, he got a doctor’s note that got him out of it.

A:          Really?

B:           Yeah, apparently he had a funny bone in his foot or something.

A:          I thought it was because he got lucky on the call-up numbers or something.

B:           Well, he didn’t fight, anyway. I mean, I say ‘refused’. Maybe he was desperate to fight, and the medical problem was just stopping him from doing it.

A:          Yeah, exactly that. I mean you can’t be a war hero if you’re not even passed as fit to fight, can you? Can’t hold that against him!

B:           No. And at least it gave him a chance to play football at college.

A:          Yes. And squash.

B:           Yes. And tennis. And golf.

A:          Anyway, we’re getting away from the real point here, which is that Donald Trump is, as I was saying just now, very much not the worst person in the world.

B:           Of course he isn’t. I mean there’s Hitler, for a start.

A:          Oh, you didn’t need to mention Hitler, for God’s sake. We can do better than that.

B:           Okay, erm, okay, erm, Pol Pot.

A:          Look, let’s be realistic: I mean, do we have any evidence at all that Donald Trump has ever killed anyone? Any evidence at all?

B:           None.

A:          None.

B:           As far as I’m aware.

A:          Well, yes, but you could say that about anyone, couldn’t you? I mean there’s no evidence you haven’t killed anyone, is there?

B:           No, there isn’t. Long may it remain the case.

A:          So, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt here, Donald Trump almost certainly is not a murderer.

B:           Almost certainly.

A:          Has he had anyone killed? You know, arranged for them to be detained, and then a bit later they’re ‘shot while trying to escape’. Anything like that?

B:           Well, not so far. As far as I know.

A:          Has he had sex with his daughter?

B:           Who knows?

A:          Well, that’s a bit vague. Have we got any evidence whatsoever that he has anything but an ordinary father-daughter relationship with his daughter?

B:           Well, he did say that creepy thing about how if he wasn’t her father maybe he’d be dating her.

A:          Wasn’t that just his way of saying that he thought she was very attractive?

B:           Yes. Yes, that’s true. Fathers have to go on television and tell the world that they find their daughters sexually attractive, don’t they?

A:          Well, not all of them do, but let’s cut him some slack. I mean, you know, nobody’s perfect.

B:           No, you’re right, and there’s no requirement that the President of the United States should be perfect, is there?

A:          None at all. Many of them haven’t been. John Adams was a very prickly character for a start.

B:           Exactly.

A:          Richard Nixon was very far from perfect. Before he had to resign.

B:           Yes. No one’s saying that Trump is like Richard Nixon, are they?

A:          No. Well, not quite.

B:           Now, I grant you, it’s true, he doesn’t appear to be that clever, but isn’t that what’s been ruining politics? Clever, clever people doing what they think and not taking into account the wishes of stupid, stupid people? The elite, and all that.

A:          Elites. Elites are a very bad thing.

B:           And let’s face it, Trump has got the stupid, stupid people very much on his side.

A:          It does seem to be that way.

B:           Oh, God, they love him. Trump’s currency among the stupid, stupid people has never been stronger.

A:          Bit of a surprise there are so many of them, though, isn’t it?

B:           What do you mean?

A:          Well, you wouldn’t expect there to be majority of stupid, stupid people, would you? I mean stupid kind of means that you’re in the minority of intelligence. Just like clever, clever people. You know. There should be more ‘normal’ people than stupid ones or clever ones.

B:           Maybe that’s exactly it.

A:          What?

B:           Well, maybe a lot of the normal ones got swayed by the stupid ones instead of gambling that the clever ones knew what they were doing as they usually did.

A:          God, I hope that’s not right.

B:           Anyway, just because he doesn’t know what an adjective is, or what monosyllabic means, and just because he doesn’t realise that saying something twenty times doesn’t make it any truer if it isn’t, that doesn’t make him dishonest, does it?

A:          …

B:           Does it?

A:          Well, I don’t know. Some of what you just said did, in fact, sound more or less like being dishonest. But no, you’re right, we really should guard against unfairly condemning Donald Trump just because he isn’t a genius.

B:           I mean, he says he is a genius.

A:          Yeah.

B:           He says he isn’t a racist.

A:          Yeah.

B:           So that’s something.

A:          Yeah.

B:           Isn’t it?

A:          I don’t know, but I’m really struggling to think of a single person in history – alive or dead – that said they were a genius, and actually were.

B:           What?

A:          Well, you know, think of the great geniuses of history. Isaac Newton. Blaise Pascal. Thomas Edison. They didn’t tend to say they were geniuses.

B:           I heard that Newton was a bit of an ornery bastard.

A:          But he said ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’.

B:           Yes, but I’ve also heard even that isn’t quite the generous thing it’s often taken to be.

A:          All the same…

B:           Oscar Wilde! Didn’t he say ‘I have nothing to declare but my genius’.

A:          Yes. I think he did.

B:           Well, there you go. Trump is no worse than him.

A:          Excellent. So, in summary, Trump isn’t a horrible and repellent human being in every respect for lots of excellent reasons.

B:           Exactly.

A:          Glad that’s sorted.