Scotland's shame (just kidding): The Tiny Scottish Village That Spawned Trump

The village of Tong, on the Outer Hebridean island of Lewis, has a calm, unhurried air. On a blustery weekday afternoon, a pair of men in gum boots herd sheep off the grass verges by the side of a narrow country road. The air is thick with the smell of fresh seaweed. The few dozen houses here are silhouetted against fields of peat colored in soft yellows, browns and greens. In the near distance is Stornoway, Lewis’ only town and the main source of jobs on the island. The Scottish mainland is 40 miles, and a two-hour ferry-ride, away.
With a population barely in three digits, Tong (pronounced “tongue”) might seem a world away from the glassy opulence of Trump Tower or the gold-leafed walls of Mar-a-Lago, but it is to this flat, marshy land that Donald Trump traces his roots. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was raised in the village, along with generations before her. She spoke almost exclusively in Scots Gaelic before leaving for a new life in the United States

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Scotland overall has a complex relationship with Trump. His construction of two luxury golf courses here in the past several years was controversial, and more recently his comments about Muslims earned the scorn of Scotland’s political elite. The people of Lewis in particular maintain a staunchly Calvinist and socially conservative ethic, which makes a thrice-married casino owner turned billionaire showman turned blustery presidential candidate—who has visited the island just twice—something of a black sheep.

“Donald Trump’s lifestyle would not be compatible with his background on the island,” Reverend James Maciver, a minister who grew up near the MacLeod home in Tong and is a friend of the family, told me. “It’s not that he has made it big in financial terms—it’s how he has done it. It’s the kind of devil-may-care attitude. It doesn’t matter what happens to people as long as he gets what he wants. That doesn’t sit well with the mentality on the island.”

Most islanders I spoke with said they view Trump’s presidential candidacy with a mix of wry amusement and embarrassment. An “Isle of Lewis supports Trump for President” Facebook page had 83 likes at the time of writing, but a rival anti-Trump page had more than double that number. The fact that so many here call him by the Scots Gaelic for his first and middle name—“Domhnall Iain,” or Donald John—is a mark of disparagement, not endearment.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-scottish-village-scotland-mother-213882#ixzz48MM8kWd6
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