Letters | Trump as democracy champion for Hong Kong is taking it too far

The outpouring of support for US President Donald Trump in Tuesday’s letters section surprised me (“Why Chinese glee over Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis could backfire”, October 6). I could not wrap my head around the logic behind Ms Grace Chan’s support for Trump’s re-election which, according to her, was that he is more anti-China than Biden, a sentiment that I suspect is behind most Hongkongers’ support for the leader of the United States.

Supposedly, people are anti-China because they want democracy, so they support someone who is anti-China because he is pro-democracy. But President Trump is not pro-democracy. He openly called the upcoming election a fraud and has repeatedly refused to say that he would abide by the election result. He is doing everything in his power to undermine American liberal democracy as we know it. So on what grounds can some Hongkongers still support Trump?

Trump has blatantly refused to condemn white supremacists in the last presidential debate, telling far-right group Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”.

I can’t help but think the reason behind some Hongkongers’ self-contradicting support for a US president who openly loathes democracy is not so different from that of the Proud Boys – nostalgia for their position in the racial hierarchy of the halcyon colonial days, one level below Caucasians but above everyone else, especially fellow mainland Chinese.