Jon Sopel - If Only They Didn’t Speak English: Notes From Trump’s America

As the BBCs North America Editor, Jon Sopel has had a pretty busy time of it lately. In the 18 months its taken for a reality star to go from laughingstock to leader of the free world, Jon has travelled the length and breadth of the United States, experiencing it from a perspective that most of us could only dream of: he has flown aboard Air Force One, interviewed President Obama and has even been described as a beauty by none other than Donald Trump.

Through music, film, literature, TV and even through the food we eat and the clothes that we wear, we all have a highly developed sense of what America is and through our shared, tangled history we claim a special relationship. But America today feels about as alien a country as you could imagine. It is fearful, angry and impatient for change. Reflecting on his journey across the continent to cover the most turbulent race in recent history, Jon Sopel lifts a lid on the seething resentments, profound anxieties and sheer rage that found its embodiment in a brash, unpredictable and seemingly unstoppable figure.

In this fascinating, insightful portrait of American life and politics, Jon Sopel sets out to answer our questions about a country that once stood for the grandest of dreams but which is now mired in a storm of political extremism, racial division and increasingly perverse beliefs.

Jon Sopel has been the BBCs North America Editor since 2014. As a BBC presenter of 16 years, Jon has worked variously as the corporations Paris Correspondent, Chief Political Correspondent, hosted both The Politics Show and Newsnight and is a regular on HARDtalk, as well as a number of Radio 4 programmes. As North America Editor, Jon has covered the 2016 election and the Trump presidency at first hand, reporting for the BBC across TV, radio, and online. He has travelled extensively across the US and recently rode a Harley Davidson down the West Coast (that wasnt for work though). He lives in Washington and London.

To Linda whos shared this wonderful American adventure (and Alfie, the miniature German Schnauzer who came along too).

And to Max and Anna, our gorgeous grown-up children who were left behind in London.

Some books are the result of a blinding flash of inspiration; others have the gestation period of an elephant. This book and how in tune with the 2016 madness and Donald Trump zeitgeist is this? is the product of a tweet.

I had been on BBC Radio 2 with Simon Mayo, talking about some aspect of the presidential election campaign, when I received a tweet from a man purporting to be a literary agent. He said hed like to talk to me as it seemed I could tell a story. Unusually, for Twitter, he turned out to be who he said he was. So I spoke to this charming and clever man, Rory Scarfe, and he suggested I scribble a few hundred words of what I would like to write about. This I thought would be enough to secure a big, fat literary contract. But no, he now wanted 15,000 words to show to publishers. And I thought, well that is simply not going to happen. Too busy with a presidential election to cover.

And this is where my wife, Linda, intervened. We were about to go to Barbados with our kids, who live and work in London, and assorted friends. I am not the best person at lying around on a sun lounger and, it is said, I can be annoying to others who are happy to do nothing but read books, listen to their music and soak up the sun. So I was told in no uncertain terms that instead of irritating everyone I should start work on the book. And each morning in this little piece of paradise, in the aptly named villa Eden at Sugar Hill, I would sit in the gazebo and write. I also spent a good deal of last summer in the Hampshire garden of my oldest friend, Pete Morgan, trying to make progress. Linda has also been a source of brilliant ideas about how the book could be improved; what should be included and what left out.

That was the start. For getting it finished, and getting a whole bunch of half-formed ideas into a vaguely cogent shape, I need to thank a number of people. Most of all my editor, Yvonne Jacob at BBC Books, who has been a source of endless enthusiasm and encouragement, my brilliant colleague and friend from New York, Nick Bryant, who read the manuscript and offered really perceptive observations. BBC bosses get a bad rap, but I want to thank them for being so supportive in this endeavour particularly Paul Danahar, the bureau chief in Washington, who would, on the rare quiet days, let me slip away to write. He was the person who, when we were discussing some extraordinary aspect of the campaign and the problem of explaining the craziness and foreignness of it to our British audience, said, If only they didnt speak English. I thought to myself now that would one day make a great book title. Malcolm Balen in London tried to keep me free, fair and impartial with what I have written. And then theres the team. My cameramen, John Landy and Ian Druce, and producers Lynsea Garrison, Sarah Svoboda and Rozalia Hristova, whove been the band of brothers (and sisters), and shared so many of the experiences that have formed the backbone of these succeeding chapters, deserve a huge thank you too. Without Jonathan Csapo to sort, fix and manage in the bureau I am not sure I would be able to function.

And of course this book is only possible because of all the people in all the places weve met and interviewed along the way.

Without this becoming like an Oscars speech, where the music wells up to drown out the person spending far too much time gushing at the microphone, I want to say one other thank you. The family across the street from us in Washington are the Powells I mention them in the book. When we arrived they could not have been more welcoming to us. And they were a constant source of insight and stories invariably over a negroni or two. As I was finishing the book, Elizabeth, at the age of 39, was diagnosed with and died two months later from a rare and aggressive form of lung cancer. As a family they are all that I love about America positive, optimistic, kind, decent. So this is to Jeff and his two beautiful children, Eleanor and Charlie; and in memory of an exceptional woman.

Jon Sopel, July 2017

Washington DC

Were going to play a game. Im going to say a name and I want you to write down what comes to mind. OK. Lets start: New York. I reckon youre going to put skyscrapers, shopping, the Empire State Building, steam rising out of vents, cycling in Central Park, yellow taxis. Broadway. Bustle. Trump Tower yup, I guess we cant ignore that any more. The soaring clarinet at the opening of Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue, Sinatra belting out New York, New York or Jay Zs concrete jungle where dreams are made of in Empire State of Mind. Or that scene when Harry met Sally in a diner, and any number of Woody Allen films in fact his whole oeuvre. Midnight Cowboy, King Kong, Fame and on and on and on.

And if I were to say LA, I bet youd write tall palm trees, Sunset Boulevard, soft-top cars, ripped men on Muscle Beach, silicone-enhanced film stars in Beverly Hills, rollerbladers in Santa Monica, the Hollywood sign. And Miami? Steamy hot, Art Deco buildings, old Cuban men playing dominos, water, powerboats, wide beaches. Or the Grand Canyon? Las Vegas? San Francisco? Yellowstone? Chicago? Nashville?

Through music, literature, film and TV, and even through the food we eat and the clothes that we wear, we all have a highly developed sense of what America is; through our own visits we feel we know the country; and through our shared, tangled history we claim a special relationship.