Winston Aldworth: The Trump bump

President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull. Photo / AP

I'm heading to the US in a few weeks. It's a trip I've looked forward to for a long time — in fact, this trip (a Southern States music tour) first appeared on my radar back when Donald Trump's stunning charge to the White House seemed highly unlikely.

There's much about Trump I don't like. The man seems a bigot. He inflames hatred and is clearly a hothead. He wears a suit badly — as do many men, but where the rest of us have the sense not to wear one unless absolutely necessary, Trump is badly suited constantly.

His business empire is built on inherited wealth and assumed privilege — not the considered effort, sense of civic duty and diligent labour that truly made America great. (Anyway, if you want more moaning about Trump, log on to Twitter ... )

In a nutshell: Where I'm a bit of a lefty liberal, the American President seems to be way, way, waaaaaay over on the other side.

So will Donald Trump's ascendancy to the Presidency make me rethink my visit to the US?
Nope.

America remains a terrific nation full of terrific people. Even the ones I disagree with.

In recent years I've visited Fiji (with its imperfect record of implementing democracy) and Australia (whose actions on Nauru cast a stain on the South Pacific) and the best trip I had last year was in Tanzania (where homosexuality carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment). All these things I disagree with.

When we travel, we build bridges, not walls. Leave the walls to Trump and his ilk.