I don’t expect to find many fans of Donald J. Trump on Lib Dem Voice. Maybe from the old days when he was the gold-lined host of the US version of The Apprentice who delivered every iconic catchphrase with the un-self-conscious bravado and camp cattiness of a drag queen, but certainly not now. 

He is not our kind of chap. 

The Donald offends mainstream British liberalism. He is brash, it is considered. He is ostentatious, it is reserved. He talks about how great he is and the amazing things he has done. British liberalism would rather die. 

His affront to the quiet civility of our brand of liberalism is so potent that it has altered perspectives in Britain of what America is. Trump is such an all-encompassing, room-dominating character that is difficult to separate him from anything around him. This power has led to London Mayor Sadiq Khan criticising Trump as he touched down for his second state visit to the UK, it also led to Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey declining an invite to a state banquet. 

The pre-emptive hangover from Brand Trump is so strong that it has led many of us down a dangerous path. His once-in-a-generation ability to generate headlines has meant that many have forgotten that there is a difference between the Presidency and the President. 

Donald John Trump is the President of the United States of America; he is not the Presidency.

He occupies the Oval Office now, not for all time. 

In just a few years, the people of America will pick another person for the job and Trump will be barred from holding it again. Such is the nature of their Constitution. Trump is temporary, the Presidency, and what it represents to the American people, is forever. 

Perhaps British people, including liberals, struggle with this because we have a permanent, non-political institution, embodied in one person, who fulfils our head of state requirements. 

For us, the duties of representing the country, its people, and its way of doing things are forever barred from the political arena so it’s hard for us to imagine its politicisation. God Save The King indeed!

But, thanks to a little family squabble beginning in the mid-1770s, our American cousins do have a political appointee as their head of state and he is, at time of writing in our country. We should, as much as many of us find the man himself lacking in decorum, afford the customary and due respect and welcome to the office. Keep calm and, with gritted teeth, if necessary, carry on!

For those of us with an interest in the history of that fascinating thread of particularly English, later British, liberty and liberalism that connects Britain with America, and which must surely include many readers of Lib Dem Voice, the value of respecting our American friends via the office, if not the character, of their president should be obvious. 

All the ideas that are the best of America, such as those found in its Bill of Rights and Constitution; free speech, free assembly, property rights, democracy, the right to testify in one’s own case, and freedom of and from religion, all find their roots in the liberalism that began here. 

There is a straight line between Runnymede and Philadelphia, from Magna Carta to the US Constitution, and from David Hume and John Locke to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. That line carries on it humanity’s highest achievements, from the automobile to the internet and the space shuttle. 

America is British liberalism’s single greatest gift to the world, and it appals me just how many of us are willing to turn our backs on it simply because of one politician. I urge you, please have some historical perspective. 

My question for Liberal Democrats, Lib Dem Voice readers, and liberals of all stripes is a simple one. 

Is it worth damaging the relationship we have with our closest ally and the single most powerful nation in the world by snubbing its great office just because of Donald Trump’s character? Especially when your choices for other powerful allies are Vladamir Putin’s penniless gangster state Russia or Xi Jinping’s technocratic communist nightmare?

I submit, my friends, that it is not. 

So let’s roll out the red carpet, even if we must mop up the Diet Coke that gets spilled on it this time.

* Alan is a writer and a regular columnist for the Scottish Daily Express. He also runs Alan Grant Communications, specialising in political communications and public affairs.