An occasional series on the new nationalists –  dingoes and drongos like Trump, Farage, and Bernardi – and other Oz twerps.

II

A bad start

The assault on truth started instantaneously.  The new president swore on the bible.  The suggestion that this man might have room for God is childish.   Then came the bullshit, and very partisan bullshit.  There is an old and wise saying about courts – the most important person there is the loser.  The same might be said for elections.  But not by this president.  He only talks to the winners.  His maxim is winners are grinners.  Winning is his only value, his only faith.  But, oh, the bullshit.

You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before. At the centre of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

Well, I’m not sure about how the tens of millions came by, but the suggestion that this crucial conviction – that a nation exists to serve its citizens – has never been seen before is preposterous.  That is exactly what the French Revolution was all about. The Declaration of Rights recognises in a way that Trump’s  Russian friends would never be able to that the State is not an end in itself:  its purpose is only to preserve the citizens in their rights.  Article 2 says: ‘The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and inalienable rights of man.’  Still, what would Trump know about the French Revolution – or the American Revolution, or the Russian Revolution – or any history?  An essential part of his psyche is that he never notices anything that doesn’t revolve around him.  And he is after all rewriting the Industrial Revolution.

I had thought it was bullshit to say he wrote his own bullshit, but then came this:

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.

We believe the exact opposite down here.  Only a Bible belt septic tank, real or imaginary, could mouth that appalling nonsense.

Then came the revolting Ms Conway to renege on the first promise.  Trump would not produce his tax returns.  She did so with two lies.

We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care.

In the meantime, the new Press Secretary made a fool of himself defending his boss’s wounded vanity about crowd size.

This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period ….These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.

It’s hard to see the poor bastard ever getting over this Hitler-like tantrum, and then Ms Conway reached instant immortality by saying that Spicer was offering ‘alternative facts.’  There in one phrase was the fraud at the heart of the whole campaign.   Poor Mr Spicer was suffering from shell shock after one outing.

I believe that we have to be honest with the American people but I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts. There are certain things that we may not fully understand when we come out, but our intention is never to lie to you.

This might be called the Idiot’s Gambit.  The poor man had not learnt a thing, but in only two days, the new President had set up the Saddam fallacy.  That was, as you recall, that he was such an inveterate liar, you should believe the opposite of whatever he said.  So, people were confident, relying on this fallacy, that Trump would not keep any promise at all.  It then came as a surprise to some that he might actually keep some.

The next day, his minders made a terrible blunder. They let him out unscripted with people he had been bad mouthing.  Well he got over that in his trademark fashion – he lied.  He said it was the press who had been bad mouthing them.  And he launched into yet another attack on them and the wounds to his ego about crowd size.  All that meant so much more to him than the memorial to the CIA fallen he was showing off in front of in such a ghastly way.   And he tried to schmooze like an illiterate teenager on real life TV.

And we really appreciate what you’ve done in terms of showing us something very special.  And your whole group, these are really special, amazing people.  Very, very few people could do the job you people do.  And I want to just let you know, I am so behind you.  And I know maybe sometimes you haven’t gotten the backing that you’ve wanted, and you’re going to get so much backing.  Maybe you’re going to say, please don’t give us so much backing.  (Laughter.)  Mr. President, please, we don’t need that much backing.  (Laughter.)  But you’re going to have that.  And I think everybody in this room knows it.

It is nauseating drivel, but he keeps having to bring it back to the only thing that matters – Donald Trump.

You know, the military and the law enforcement, generally speaking, but all of it — but the military gave us tremendous percentages of votes.  We were unbelievably successful in the election with getting the vote of the military.  And probably almost everybody in this room voted for me, but I will not ask you to raise your hands if you did.  (Laughter.)  But I would guarantee a big portion, because we’re all on the same wavelength, folks.  (Applause.)  We’re all on the same wavelength, right? 

The constant applause for this rubbish adds weight to the suggestion that he brought his own claque.  Then he gets diverted by a reference to Time magazine, and he falls right into the illiterate ‘like’ mode.

So a reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on there cover, like, 14 or 15 times.  I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time Magazine.  Like, if Tom Brady is on the cover, it’s one time, because he won the Super Bowl or something, right?  (Laughter.)  I’ve been on it for 15 times this year.  I don’t think that’s a record, Mike, that can ever be broken.  Do you agree with that?  What do you think? 

After this disaster, Trump then went off to his mates at Fox News to display his immodesty again.

My CIA speech was a 10 and everybody loved it.  I had a standing ovation like you wouldn’t believe.  Everybody and it was such a success.

This was all despicable self-aggrandizement and not surprisingly a former CIA head said so, and equally unsurprisingly, Greg Sheridan got upset.

If you want to know how dangerously unbalanced Trump is, read the whole text of the CIA speech.

Now, I know a lot about West Point.  I’m a person that very strongly believes in academics.  In fact, every time I say I had an uncle who was a great professor at MIT for 35 years who did a fantastic job in so many different ways, academically — was an academic genius — and then they say, is Donald Trump an intellectual?  Trust me, I’m like a smart persona.  (Laughter.)  And I recognized immediately.  So he was number one at West Point, and he was also essentially number one at Harvard Law School.  And then he decided to go into the military.  And he ran for Congress.  And everything he’s done has been a homerun.  People like him, but much more importantly to me, everybody respects him.

If medical science does not have a diagnosis and treatment for this condition, it is time it caught up with history.  No one can stay a spoiled five year old child forever.

Finally, the English outlawed torture about 700 years ago.  Trump is in favour of it.

Foreign leaders are lining up to take candy from this baby before he learns better.  Theresa May, the reluctant nationalist, got in first.  It was oh so easy to verbal trump on NATO.  One hundred per cent!  Well, you can’t take him at his word, but she at least had something to help her in the quagmire left by some of the best liars in the world.

Meanwhile, back in Oz, that awful galah Bernardi was counting his marbles – or those he had not lost – ‘his feline eyes excellent in the twilight’, as Carlyle said of another devout plotter.  And at the other end, that awful woman Rhiannon was plotting.  Here is a real poser.  Who revolts you more, Senator Bernardi or Senator Rhiannon?  Or is it just that they come from what Bernardi’s idol calls the swamp?

As a mate said yesterday at breakfast, we can’t live four years with this.

So, here then is the first Trump gag I have heard.  A plane gets in difficulties.  There are five passengers and four chutes.

I am the greatest basketballer ever with 20 million fans.  I have to go.

Whoosh!

I am the greatest violinist ever with 40 million fans.  I have to go.

Whoosh!

I am the President of the greatest country in the world voted in with the greatest majority ever.  I am the smartest person in the world.  My people need me and I must go.

Whoosh!

That leaves the Pope and a ten year old schoolboy.

My son, I am old and have had a full life. I am ready to meet my Maker.  You are young and have everything before you.  You take the last chute.

That is very good of you, Holy Father, but there are in truth two chutes left – the smartest person in the world just took off with my school bag.