No smoke without ire

MAGA crowd put the tiff in Pontiff as new American Pope angers them by rejecting Trump's worldview

- CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN

BY the sound of the cheering from America's political right, mixed with the faint smell of gun oil and grilled hot dogs in the air, you'd have thought the Vatican had just canonised Donald Trump.

The smoke was white, the memes were red, and somewhere between the Stars and Stripes and a bald eagle in wraparound Oakleys, MAGA Nation believed they had done the impossible: elected an American Pope who finally shared their values.

The holy sanctuary had been stormed by a "real American".

Finally, a Pope who would give communion with one hand and a slap to the woke with the other. This was their guy.

No more of that European "mercy" nonsense. No more hand-wringing about poor people. This Pope, they thought, would finally consecrate the sacred trinity of border walls, capitalism, and casual racism.