Donald Trump has given a lot more to modern politics than non-existent walls, alleged electoral fraud, and misogynist soundbites.

Across the globe there have arisen politicians who, even if they don’t admire the former president’s politics, seem prepared to emulate at least some of his tactics. Nicola Sturgeon’s supporters would be aghast at the very notion of mentioning her and Trump’s name in the same sentence, and yet the similarities are there for all to see. 

Nationalism, of course, is the lowest common denominator shared by both Trump and Scottish nationalism. But scratch the surface and you’ll find other similarities. This week an SNP activist in Glasgow was caught out threatening Blair McDougall, the former leader of the pro-Union Better Together campaign, with a public execution. Such threats against the nationalists’ political opponents are anything but rare, but on this occasion McDougall at least captured a screenshot of the offending tweet before the perpetrator, Mark Fagan, deleted it, forcing a reluctant SNP to take action against him.

This sort of behaviour is not so very different from Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters, whose online – and real life – intimidation of opponents became such a depressing feature of the 2020 presidential campaign and its aftermath.

But a fish rots from the head down, and today we’re witnessing another classic Trumpian move from none other than Nicola Sturgeon, who has decided to launch her party’s official local election campaign without the presence of the Scottish media. Not only that, she has deliberately hidden details of the time and venue from the press, allowing only a solitary TV camera in to record her address to the nation.

This, again, isn’t exactly a new tactic for the nationalists. During the 2014 independence referendum thousands of angry activists descended on the BBC’s Glasgow headquarters to demand the sacking of political editor Nick Robinson for refusing to take the SNP line in his reports from the campaign trail. A few weeks later, Alex Salmond, convening a press conference to respond to his party’s defeat in that campaign, deliberately excluded three national newspapers.

Just last month, reporters were invited to the launch by Kate Forbes, the Scottish Government’s finance minister, to the (online) launch of her party’s latest economic strategy for Scotland, only to discover that they could not ask questions of the minister afterwards.

All of this should sound familiar to students of Trump, whose favourite tactic was to denigrate and belittle journalists and encourage his activists to treat them with hostility. Autocrats and dictators the world over see silencing the press as the first step towards securing their rule and getting their way.

It is, of course, the First Minister’s right to invite whoever she chooses to her party events. And in light of recent events – the ferry-building scandal, Scotland’s Covid infection rate, not to mention the dreadful record of the SNP’s flagship council, Glasgow – who can blame her for not wanting to answer searching questions about her party’s record locally and nationally? And let’s face it, how much light would Sturgeon shed on any issue by regurgitating her favourite soundbites about how she’s “not standing here” making excuses “in any way, shape or form”?

But a press that is free to interrogate our leaders and report on their answers is one of the defining characteristics of a democracy. It doesn’t matter whether you or those leaders happen to like or admire journalists’ work – that is a matter of absolutely no importance. What matters is that the press are not prevented in any way from doing its job. Because if journalists don’t hold political parties to account, who will?

More importantly, when politicians seek to avoid press scrutiny, it is always – always – because there is something they don’t want disseminated in the public sphere. The reason the media are being excluded from the SNP launch is because they are frightened.

But frightened of what? They know from recent experience that no revelation or criticism will stop nearly half of Scots voting for them anyway. Given their unchallenged position in the polls, now, surely, is the time to swagger before journalists, challenging them to give it their best shot, knowing that whatever answer Sturgeon gives, her party will still sweep all before it on May 5.

It’s rare indeed that an impregnable poll lead results in a party becoming more, not less, nervous of scrutiny. Perhaps Nicola Sturgeon has something to hide after all. 

Either way, were he to watch events in Scotland unfold, the 45th president could be assured that his political legacy lives on, even in the homeland of his late mother.