In advance of the imminent release of T2 Trainspotting, Danny Boyle’s long-awaited sequel to one of the most iconic British films of the Nineties, the author of the books on which the movies are based, Irvine Welsh (pictured), has been sharing his thoughts on the election of Donald Trump.
With homes in Chicago and Miami, Welsh has been living and working in the US for the past few years.
“I think something’s probably got to give, really,” the 59-year-old Scotsman tells Hot Press’ Olaf Tyaransen. “I’m looking at all the news channels and all that, and he’s not even in power yet, and it’s like there seems to be a massive ongoing war taking place.
"It’s not taking place on the streets, but it’s taking place in every kind of…. it’s all people are talking about. It’s the sort of subtext for everything, and it seems to me to invite a kind of paralysis in the whole system of government. I don’t know.”
Even before he has taken office, the POTUS-in-waiting has been embroiled in numerous political, business and sexual scandals. Welsh doesn’t expect this to change anytime soon.
“I think it’s inevitable, when you produce such a controversial candidate – but I mean, everything seems to be contested now, every single thing. And he’s not even in power yet, so I think it’s gonna be an absolute battlefield here, psychologically and culturally, over the next three or four years. There’s so many skeletons in this guy’s cupboard. I can see so many legal challenges.”
In Welsh’s opinion, nobody was more surprised at Trump’s victory than the man himself.
“I just don’t think he expected to win, and I think that he’s not equipped for it. What he’s got in his businesses, and his private life, and his stuff with the taxes and all the money that he’s owing, I think he wants to keep that hidden. And now, he’s gonna have all these legal challenges to expose it. There’ll be a lot of courtroom brawls and paralysis over the next few years.
“I expect to see him do this victim/bully thing, back and forth, back and forth, because that’s his psychology,” he continues. “It’s gonna be such a strange thing to have somebody like that right at the head of the government. From my point of view, and for artists and writers, it’s massively exciting, because you’re looking at something that’s got the potential to be a major disintegrating factor in the whole society, really. I suppose from a citizen’s point of view it sucks, but from an artist’s point of view it’s fucking great!”
You can read the full Irvine Welsh interview in the next issue of Hot Press, which hits the streets this Thursday.