IT'S their job to put down their commander-in-chief. And they have come to Scotland, land of the drive-by slagging, to find out how.
America's satirists are enjoying a long-awaited revival thanks to their thoroughly mockable new President. But they reckon they can learn from Scots who were trolling Donald Trump years before he took his reality TV show to the White House.
Late night comedy show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee crossed the big water to what its host called "the one place where the ****hole met his storybook ending". Here.
The show aired this week – any UK showing would have more bleeps than words – just as protestors prepared to gather in Edinburgh to once again let America know how they feel about the new fella in the White House.
Thousands marched yesterday with placards that somehow got a laugh out of the rise of the far right. "Trump is a pure radge an ahm fair scunnered," said one. "Yer talkin mince waeoot a tattie in sight," went another.
Americans have already started to get used to Scots language insults. The first round of protests after his election featured "bawbag" – popularised by actor and Democrat Richard Schiff on Twitter. He was back online yesterday urging his fellow Americans to use the hashtag #presidentbawbag.
"Thanks to all good Scots," he tweeted.
There is a serious point: anti-authoritarian campaigners in the US say they have taken comfort from international backing, much in the same way as those in South Africa or Latin America did as they suffered rightist regimes.
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Organisers of the march, Scotland Against Trump, got the politics out of the way. In a statement, they said: "Trump is the apex of an insurgency of an international far-right. We will resist. We are the majority. We are ready to make our voice heard."
But humour gives power too. There were new Scottish jokes on offer on the banners: "Awa an boil yer heid", "Tangerine walloper" and, just to prove the march was in ever polite Edinburgh, the understated "Angry old lady against Trump".
American liberals are determined to use comedy against the President they loathe. Satire show Saturday Night Live is getting its biggest ratings in years after its relentless parody of Trump and his acolytes.
A Sunday Herald TV listing review – comparing last month's Inauguration to an episode of the Twilight Zone – went viral.
Full Frontal's Amy Hoggart, a Brit, decided to come to Scotland to find out just how to use humour to take down foes. The country, after all, she said, had been "resisting oppressors ever since the Roman Empire". And, thanks to Trump's controversial golf courses, Scots have long experienced at protesting against the reality TV star turned President.
Hoggart sought the advice of Michael Forbes, the farmer who resisted Trump's bid to buy out his Aberdeenshire land. He was, she said, "a farmer who invented the art of pissing off Donald Trump".
Forbes met Trump once. "I sussed him out in 10 seconds," the farmer told American TV. "He was an ****hole." He added: "Keep pissing him off. An ****hole is always an ***hole. He'll crack up and end in an padded cell."
How did Forbes react when Trump said he lived like a pig. "I was laughing about it. So was my mother. She thinks he is a clown. He is a compulsive liar."
Hoggart showed a clip of Trump proving Forbes right. The new President said his Scottish neighbours liked him. She asked them. The Sunday Herald, as a family newspaper, could not print their responses.
Hoggart ended her show dressed as William Wallace – or at least Mel Gibson as William Wallace – with her face painted blue, on a horse. (Full Frontal's map of Britain has Scots referred to as "mad blue bastards".)
But the Scots, Hoggart concluded, were the "original Trump haters" and "heroes pissing Trump off".
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