WHERE ARE ALL THE PRESIDENTS?

HE CAN’T BE SERIOUS! 

It’s long been clear that Donald Trump sees his presidency as some kind of bizarre reality-politik TV show, where he is the Presenter, ratings are the ultimate aim and the way to win them is to spew out a continuous flow of cheap theatrical drama.

It’s also clear, as many world leaders and commentators are concluding, that he is neither a serious person nor a serious world leader.

Trump erased any doubts at the end of his harangue against President Zelensky when he said: “It will make great television”.

My only question now is where are the Presidents? Where are Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden defending the office against the assault on it by Trump, Musk and the tech thugs?

Americans have long held a deep respect for the office of the Presidency. Former presidents retain their title for life. These men continue to be briefed on the innermost operations of their nation. They have inside knowledge.

Their legacies are now at stake, Where are they?

BRING BACK THE COASTWATCHERS!

The Chinese navy’s live-fire exercises off our east coast have highlighted some major deficiencies in Australia’s defence capabilities. And we don’t have time for AUKUS to solve them.

The fact that it was a Virgin Australia pilot who had to advise the ADF that the Chinese were conducting the exercises 640km east of Eden on the NSW south coast should have alarm bells ringing in Canberra, both at Russell and in Parliament House.

 It focusses attention on our current defensive capacity. While AUKUS may deliver our first Virginia Class nuclear submarine in ten years, the $368 billion we’re spending on the deal is robbing urgently-needed current programs.

 Although the ADF has a budget of $58 billion this year, many experts are convinced that we don’t have the assets to defend ourselves and, under current arrangements, our navy doesn’t expect any new ships until 2029 at the earliest.

 Maybe it’s time we looked to some of the wonderful ingenuity we displayed in World War Two when we created the famous Coastwatchers.

 Protecting our enormous coastline has always been daunting. It runs about 19,000 km – roughly the distance from Sydney to London via the Cape of Good Hope.

 So, in the lead up to the war, the navy cobbled together a remarkable rag-tag group of ‘old hands’ around our coast and in the islands surrounding us: planters, traders, miners, teachers, government officials, missionaries and locals.

 Using cumbersome teleradios (needing up to 10 people to transport them), they provided an invaluable early-warning system against Japanese attacks.

 It cost them dearly. Many were captured, tortured and executed. But the intelligence they provided prompted the great American Admiral William ‘Bull’ Halsey to tell one Coastwatcher hero, Paul Mason:

“Guadalcanal saved the Pacific and the Coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal.”

 The Coastwatchers’ communications would be a lot easier and more efficient in today’s digital world. Maybe it’s worth putting the old band back together?

FACTS NOT FICTION AS AMERICA SIDES WITH RUSSIA ...

As the Trumpian propaganda train on Ukraine gathers momentum, it’s time to introduce some facts into the debate.

 The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based independent research organisation that provides fact-based data on conflicts, recently countered Trump’s claims.

 Trump: claimed Zelensky was an unelected dictator.

The facts: Zelensky was elected in a democratic national ballot in 2019 (with 75% of the popular vote). The Ukrainian constitution prohibits elections in wartime (ie once martial law has been declared, as it was when Russia invaded three years ago).

Trump: claimed Ukraine has lost millions of its people in the war.

The facts, Ukraine has lost around 46,000 killed - including 12,000 civilians - and almost 400,000 wounded. (That’s roughly Australia’s casualties in WWI.)

Trump: claimed the US has given $US200 billion more in aid to Ukraine than European nations. He said America had given $US350 billion.

The facts: The Kiel Institute for the World Economy says European nations have pledged $US204 billion against America’s $US183 billion.

Trump: claimed Zelensky had never sought negotiations with Putin.

The facts: Zelensky tried to meet with Putin days before the Russian invasion in February 2022. In March 2022, Zelensky tried again. Putin ignored him. Zelensky said he was even open to discussing the status of occupied territory provided the Ukrainian people could ratify any deal via a referendum. Putin rejected the offer.

As usual, Trump shoots from the lip, untrammelled by any need to stick to the facts.

And today, the United States split with its allies and voted against a UN resolution calling on Russia to pull its troops out of Ukraine.

BLOWING HIS OWN TRUMPET

We’ve seen some absurdly-named political parties over the years: America’s ‘Guns and Dope Party’; Russia’s ‘Party of the Dead’; Britain’s ‘Fancy Dress Party’; or Hungary’s ‘Two-Tailed Dog Party’.

But Clive Palmer’s ‘Trumpet of Patriots Party’ is surely up there with the dopiest.

In essence, it seems to be a vague Oz version of Trumpism: ‘Make Australia Great Again’. At the shambolic party launch this week, it was hard to detect a single original thought, just some mumbled recycling of Trumpian tweets.

Now Clive is no mug. He made millions, then billions, from real estate and mining leases, almost always shrouded in controversy.

And he’s been fiddling around the edge of politics since his time as State Director of the Queensland National Party at the feet of the old Flim-Flam man himself, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, in the 1980s.

His own political manifesto is a jumble of hand-picked beliefs and policies that has changed and morphed with the prevailing winds. The only thing that seems to tie them together is their ultimate benefit to old Clive.

Down the years he’s become a master of the half-truth, an accomplished press conference tap dancer and a prolific, but bewildering, creator of low-rent TV commercials.

He’s also a serial litigant. In fact, he named litigation as his hobby in Who’s Who.

But his achievements, aside from lining his own pockets, are harder to find. His Coolum Dinosaur park lies in ruins, Qld Nickel went into voluntary administration in 2016, he’s on the third iteration of his project to rebuild the Titanic, now due to set sail in 2027. And his last foray into politics saw him secure a single seat, at a cost of more than $120 million.

And this time, the Trumpet of Patriots Party, with its bizarre logo/crest of a Lion blowing a horn (certainly not a trumpet) above a motto of ‘honor omnia’ does not fill us with confidence. Clive reckons the motto means ‘honour above all’. Latin scholars say it actually translates as ‘honour everything’.

One thing is certain: Clive has shown himself to be a virtuoso when it comes to blowing his own trumpet!

TIME TO EXTEND THE NO DICKHEADS POLICY

Many sporting teams have adopted the ‘No Dickheads’ policy with outstanding success. It’s long been a standard operating procedure in our military. And smart voters have been using it as a political yardstick for many years.

In essence, ‘No Dickheads!” sets a standard for behaviour within teams, realising that dickheads, no matter how talented or even charismatic, generally cause far more damage and disruption than they’re worth.

Their toxicity destroys collaboration and undermines harmony and respect. Inevitably, it white ants the team from within.

Apparently, it does the same thing to nations, as is becoming clearer with each day of Trump’s Second Coming.

In Australia, we grew up with three guiding principles that we inherited from our parents: a Fair Go (equal opportunity for all); mateship (the power of community); and an inherent distrust of those who made promises that seemed too good to be true.  

These principles spawned the No Dickheads policy.

I reckon it’s time we extended that policy to the national level and applied it to our dealings with other countries, starting with America.

Trump recently pretended to tear up the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), calling it a “terrible deal”.

Yet, he had presided over that agreement (in 2018 calling it “truly historic”, “the most important ever agreed to by the US” and “the biggest trade deal in the United States’ history”).

That’s taking Dickhead to hitherto unimagined levels … and that’s dealing with his closest neighbours and trade partners. Imagine how secure his deals will be with remote allies and partners.

THE ELASTIC EDGE OF LEGALITY

“Fire! Ready! Aim!” 

An Australian Special Forces soldier first introduced me to the phrase “operating on the elastic edge of legality”when describing his tours of Afghanistan.

It came to mind again during these early days of Trump’s crazed Second Coming as Elon Musk and his band of pre-pubescent tech thugs charged into America’s government operating systems, slashing and burning at will.

In accord with Trump’s philosophy of ‘Fire, Ready, Aim!’, Musk and his Young Bros adopted the old Scottish rugby call of ‘retaliate first’ as they strong-armed their way into their nation’s most secret databases and computer platforms, their eyes blazing with doctrinaire destruction.

Sadly, we’ve become accustomed to Trump’s performances, to the pandering of his Republican Party hierarchy, and to his Democratic opponents frozen like deer in headlights as he ‘floods the zone’ with his shameless slapstick.

But the risks are already there and they’re getting bigger by the day. Every time Musk’s tech thugs trample over the law and ignore the impact of their actions on their fellow citizens’ lives, they weaken the structures that bind the nation.

Every time Trump trashes agencies, governments and individual reputations, he adds to the confusion and promotes the division, within America and around the globe.

As we have done for decades, Australia turns its eyes to America and, both consciously and subconsciously, adopts many of its methods and beliefs.

But, surely it’s time that we recognised the values that have built our nation: a Fair Go for all; the power of community; secularism; multiculturalism; all underpinned by democratic elections and government.

Let’s not allow the garish Trump Show to outshine our politics. Let’s turn to leaders with character, to representatives who demonstrate a determination to care for their constituents and let’s ensure that truth and kindness still play a crucial role in public life here.

TRUMP PUTS THE PLUTO INTO PLUTOCRACY

TECH THUGS TAKE CONTROL

Plutocracy, or rule by the wealthy, has been around since ancient Rome. We saw it flourish in the Italian city-states of Venice, Florence and Genoa, and in America in the Gilded Age of the late 1800s. Today, wealthy elites control Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China.

And now we’re witnessing Trump and his tech thugs working to transform the United States into the biggest plutocracy of them all.

It’s not yet clear in this bizarre Disney remake whether Trump is playing the role of Mickey Mouse, with Musk as his pet dog Pluto, or vice versa. What is clear is that there’s no director, they’ve thrown away the script and they’re in full improv mode.

Strangely, while Pluto derives from the Greek word for wealth (ploutos), it also has origins in ancient mythology as the Latin name for the Greek god Hades, who ruled the underworld. 

In Trump’s case these origins combine to make perfect sense in a Truman Show where stupendously wealthy individuals control an impenetrable tech underworld and are hellbent on disrupting democratic structures and ideals that would limit their powers and future wealth.

At the rate at which Trump is blundering ahead with multiple daily executive orders, we should soon see whether the dog is wagging its tail, or vice versa.

DARWIN ABANDONED ...

NINE BAILS FROM THE TOP END …

Nine’s closure of its Northern Territory news bureau leaves the ABC as the only television outlet covering the Top End.

It’s yet another blow to regional news coverage across this wide brown land, a massive loss to Darwin’s local community and another victory to the international tech thugs.

Nine is proposing to replace the Darwin bulletin with the network’s Queensland service. It says it will retain a reporter and a camera operator to “tell the territory’s stories to a national audience”.

Considering that the Northern Territory has a population of about 250,000 (more than Hobart) and is bigger than France, Germany and Italy combined, (and twice the size of Texas), that’s a big ask!

I hope the Nine team has a reliable crew car: just driving from Darwin to Alice Springs, around 1500km, is the rough equivalent of driving from London to Rome.

Thank God Darwin still has its inimitable NT News to keep it up to date.

TRUMP'S HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF AMERICA ...

HOW DUNNING AND KRUGER GOT IT RIGHT

My old friend ‘Toolo’ Timlin, a very wise sound recordist, summed up the Dunning-Kruger Effect better than most: “They don’t know what they don’t know.

Ever since academic psychologists, Prof David Dunning and Dr Justin Kruger, released their study back in 1999, their work has been validated time and again, especially in politics.

The Dunning-Kruger report highlighted “a cognitive bias where those with little knowledge or expertise overestimate their knowledge or skill because they don’t have enough knowledge to know that they don’t have enough knowledge”

I prefer Toolo’s definition but you get the point. And when you think of the concept who immediately comes to mind? Yep, Trump … and his tech thugs.

Perhaps the Dunning-Kruger effect could be extended: just because you know one field of endeavour really well, it doesn’t follow that you know or understand others to the same extent.

This is especially true when someone with limited knowledge acquires power, but lacks compassion and empathy. Their inability to view things through others’ eyes or to care about the impact of their decisions on others can have devastating results.

Trump is Dunning-Kruger personified. With his compassion bypass and his narcissistic personality, he’s been emboldened by a supine Republican Party and a toothless Democratic Party to act on his every whim.

He’s going to keep on signing those Executive Orders until America’s legislators grow spines. God knows what nation and world will be left by then.

I’M A TECH BRO, LET ME OUT OF HERE!

TRUMP 2.0, THE REALITY TV SHOW

Anybody who has ever worked in television (or watched it) will instantly recognise Trump 2.0 for what it is: a reality TV show. 

Season Two opened with an all-day broadcast on January 20, starting with the inauguration, moved inside to the Capitol Rotunda, which was transformed into a shiny-floor TV studio. The set dressers placed Trump’s fawning tech bros (the ‘broligarchy’) in front of his prospective cabinet members, alongside his family and camp followers.  

As is his want, Trump then tap danced to his audience, which, clearly, he imagines as America’s TV and streaming audience and where he sees success as victory in the ‘ratings’:

“America will be respected again and admired again, including by people of religion, faith, and goodwill.  We will be prosperous, we will be proud, we will be strong, and we will win like never before.”

After the inauguration, the show switched to official luncheons, then to live public signings of his executive orders. On Day One, Trump managed to scratch his name on 26 Executive Orders, almost three times more than the previous record (nine, by Joe Biden in 2020). Many of these orders have been immediately challenged in courts across the land because they exceed presidential powers.

The tech bros have paid millions, some of them billions, to join this show. How long it will take them to realise that the show exists solely to promote and make money for its host, ‘The Presenter of the United States’. How long before, one by one, they bail as their conflicting interests clash with Trump’s aims.

The next questions will be how long it takes for the audience to realise they’ve been scammed yet again by the old stager.

The show’s promos promised everything from ending the war in Ukraine (firstly, even before he took office, then the day after, now within 100 days), lowering the cost of US petrol to $US2 a gallon (“drill baby, drill”), halving car insurance, imposing tariffs on Canadian, Mexican and Chinese imports, closing the border with Mexico, lowering US food prices (originally on Day One, now “it’s very hard”), and slashing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (affecting one third of the US population, that’s a lot of voters).

It's going to get harder and harder for a 78-year old to keep tap dancing when the show’s ‘reality’ kicks in.