US President Donald Trump’s retweeting of inflammatory anti-Muslim videos from a British far-right group drew widespread condemnation and derision from major global publications this week. Calling the tweets absurd and demeaning, the Washington Post wrote, “Jayda Fransen is the deputy leader of the far-right nationalist party Britain First. In 2016, a British court convicted her of harassment after she yelled abuse at a woman wearing a hijab. One year later, she faces new charges of inciting religious hatred after allegedly distributing racist leaflets and posting hateful videos during a rape trial. President Trump retweeted three of her Twitter posts promoting anti-Muslim videos. His tweets are often absurd and demeaning — both to the targets of his abuse and to those who must ritually respond to the latest instance of unpresidential conduct. The president is skilled at using his Twitter account to sow confusion and anger. But we cannot ignore that some behaviour is simply beyond the pale. The office of British Prime Minister Theresa May said it best: ‘It is wrong for the president to have done this.’”

The Guardian noted that in retweeting anti-Muslim video clips promoted by a leader of a far-right fringe group in Britain and then rounding on the British prime minister for reproaching him, Trump proved again that he is no friend of the UK. “This is an important — and dangerous — moment for Britain as it launches itself into the choppy waters of Brexit. The vain hope of politicians who pushed for this nation’s exit from the European Union was that we could hitch ourselves to the United States. True, the US is Britain’s most important partner on the global stage. As nations we have a sense of shared values and a long history together. Both have worked to uphold the international rules-based system. After the end of the cold war it was a partnership, along with others, that guaranteed a short period of relative peace. What was not taken sufficiently into account was that this was not only a physical equilibrium but also a moral one.”

The New York Times carried a scathing comment piece that panned the chaotic nature of the presidency in the US. “By the end of the day, Trump had been condemned by Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, to which he responded by going after a different Theresa May on Twitter, dragging an obscure woman who at the time had six followers into the limelight. In another tweet, he insinuated that TV host Joe Scarborough killed an intern in 2001, when he was a congressman. This came after news reports informed us that Trump is still a birther and that he no longer admits that the voice on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape is his own. Trump’s aides are trying to spin his behaviour, which they clearly expect to get worse, as a sign of heightened confidence.”

In a sharp opinion article, the Daily Telegraph highlighted Trump’s social media methods and how he is actually good at understanding the anger of his base - the core of his voters who feel disillusioned with the Washington elite. It added, “Donald Trump acknowledges his debt to Twitter. Without it, he once said, he’d never be president. And you can see why: he follows just 45 people but is followed by 44 million. This million-to-one ratio rises even higher when you think of the media: for every word of his tweets, several million words will be published in response. In this way, his Twitter account becomes a remote control for a nation’s news. He chooses the topic, his critics condemn him — but they talk all day about a subject of his choice. They rise to the bait every time. And then, his targets — ideally, he’ll choose a topic where the political elite is out of step with public opinion. It conveys something else: That he understands the anger of those who feel ignored and abandoned.”