WELL, that’s that then. Donald Trump flew into the UK, bumped into the furniture, broke a few ornaments, stood in front of the Queen, then left.

While playing golf at Turnberry, the president of the United States also got a glimpse of some of the people who’ve been protesting against him, but, in typical style, he gave them a wave and moved on. Perhaps, in Trump’s mind, the protesters were fake news; perhaps, to him, their jeers sounded like cheers. In fact, I’m sure the protests will have done absolutely nothing to change the president’s view that we love him dearly in the UK because, in Trump’s world, we do. We all think he’s doing a great job. A really great job.

Fortunately, the protesters on the streets of London, Glasgow and other British cities were there to demonstrate, politely, what many British people really think of Trump. One nice lady in Troon held up a placard that read “Off you go with a Trumpety Trump” and there were a few other classics of the genre, such as “I’m not normally a protest type person, but honestly” and “This episode of Black Mirror sucks”. In cardboard and magic marker, the placards were everything that Donald Trump isn’t: intelligent, literate, informed, and witty.

However – well-attended as the protests were – let’s not get too carried away; in fact, there’s a danger in focusing on them that we assume the protests represent what’s really going on in Scotland and that the whole country is as liberal as the nice people holding up placards with all the apostrophes in the right places. One man at the weekend was waving a sign aimed at Trump that read “Stop saying you’re Scottish” as if the Scottish and Scotland were utterly different from Trump, whereas the truth, sadly, is we’re not so different really. Indeed, before we get overly sanctimonious, we should acknowledge a truth about Scotland and the president whose mother was born here: Donald Trump is a bit like us.

I remember this uncomfortable thought first occurring to me when I met Trump in 2010 and, believe me, in the flesh, he is every bit as bewildering, bombastic, unpleasant, arrogant and witless as you would expect. For a start, he entered the room led by a piper – who on Earth does that? – and was surrounded by a team of security guards who called him Mr T. While waiting to meet the man, I had absent-mindedly left my cup of coffee on the floor and one of the guards approached it like it was an incendiary device. “Cup of coffee on the floor Mr T!” he exclaimed before guiding his boss around it.

The rest of the meeting, which was held at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, was just as disconcerting. Donald Trump was in the city, you may remember, to receive an honorary doctorate from the university (since rescinded) and in a small room he demonstrated all the unpleasant qualities that he would later show, to our cost, on the world stage.

He boasted, for instance, about how great he was, and about how great his golf courses were (“better than your wildest dreams”). He belittled people who disagreed with him (“I heard there was going to be a protest today ... there were three people with a dog and the person with the dog was waving”). And he also said – something I remember dismissing at the time – that lots of people had asked him to run for President. “Until recently,” he said, “I would have no interest but someone has to do something.”

As any reasonable person would in the circumstances, I came away from that meeting thinking what a dreadful egomaniac Trump was, but there was also something familiar about him. He reminded me of the typical Scottish blowhard – that awful person (always a man) who sometimes ends up sitting next to you at a wedding, or cornering you at a party, or driving you home in a taxi (if you’re particularly unlucky, you may also have one in your family). And didn’t we all have to put up with the ultimate blowhard as First Minister from 2007 to 2014?

However, there are other, much more significant ways in which Donald Trump is a bit like us. Many of the protesters at the weekend highlighted his racist views on their placards – quite rightly – but we shouldn’t flatter ourselves that Scotland is very different and has somehow moved on. There are thousands of racially motivated crimes committed in the country every year. And what is sectarianism if not racism? Remember: the anti-Trump protesters aren’t the only people who have been marching in recent days.

Scotland is also not much better on homophobia. Just the other day, I caught an online video that had been made by a 21-year-old gay man who was verbally abused and punched and kicked in the main street in Neilston – it’s the kind of crime that one in five gay people have experienced. For trans people, it’s even worse – fifty per cent of that group have been a victim of a hate crime.

Now, we all know that Nicola Sturgeon likes to think Scotland is different and, in a move at the weekend calculated to look like a contrast to Trump, she marched with gay people at the Pride event in Glasgow. But what on Earth were the organisers thinking? Not only is Sturgeon too divisive and party-political to lead an inclusive event like Pride, the Scottish Government supports – and funds – faith schools that teach that same-sex relationships are wrong. Homophobia is sanctioned by the state that is headed by Donald Trump – but the same thing is happening in Scotland.

None of these problems mean, of course, that the protesters were wrong to demonstrate against Trump. But there is a danger that the witty placards and party atmosphere contribute to the myth that Scotland is much more progressive than other countries and that Donald Trump is entirely alien to what we believe in. His mother was born here. He expresses views that many Scots support. And he acts in a way that will be familiar to all those women who have been victims of Scottish misogynist pigs. Donald Trump is an awful man, and a terrible president, but let’s not pretend, in marching against him, that we are free of his flaws.