How Malcolm Turnbull went full Trump
On the day of the US election, as it became obvious that Donald Trump had won, a group of men at Sydney University were filmed cheering and chanting, “Grab them by the pussy, that’s how we do it!”
University alumnus Malcolm Turnbull wasn’t among them, but given the enthusiasm and pride with which, over the following week, he has paraded his credentials as the president-elect’s new best friend, he may as well have been.
Turnbull was second only to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu in getting Trump on the phone to congratulate him. Appropriate perhaps, given the two countries’ status as among the most racist on earth. No doubt Trump was happy to hear from a leader with practical experience with the kind of repressive, anti-immigrant policies that he aspires to.
The Turnbull-Trump tête-à-tête, which was arranged by Australian ex-pat and has-been golfer Greg Norman, a long time friend of Trump’s, was “very warm, constructive and practical … I suppose as both being businessmen who found our way into politics … we come to the problems of our own nations and indeed world problems with a pragmatic approach”, Turnbull reflected.
The kind of “pragmatic approach” we can expect from Trump is clear from the appointments he has made to his incoming administration. Steve Bannon, Trump’s pick as chief strategist and “senior counsellor”, was until recently head of Breitbart News – one of the internet’s main sewers for the excremental mutterings of the far right and neo-Nazi fringe of man-children otherwise known, these days, as the “alt-right”.
Remember Wormtongue, the slimy-evil advisor to King Théoden of Rohan in J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings? That’s Bannon. And unfortunately for us, he’s not just a ghoulish fictional character dreamt up by a fantasy writer, but the bona-fide, real life advisor to the world’s most powerful political leader.
Trump’s choice for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was knocked back as a candidate for a federal judgeship in 1986 under the Reagan administration on the basis that he was too racist. At a Senate confirmation hearing, former colleagues testified that he had called a black lawyer “boy”, and said the Ku Klux Klan was “OK until I found out they smoked pot”.
Michael Flynn, Trump’s appointment to the position of national security adviser, was driven out of his post as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, with numerous former colleagues describing him as “unhinged”. Flynn was appropriately described in the Guardian as “a conspiracy theorist and Islamophobe who hangs around the darker corners of the white nationalist internet”.
What a team! Perfect, we might think, for implementing the kind of “pragmatic” policies that the Trump administration is considering – like immediately deporting or jailing between 2 and 3 million undocumented immigrants, or creating a register for Muslims living in the US.
The election of Trump has unleashed a right wing wave that’s rolling around the world. The far right and neo-Nazi scenes are taking to the streets to celebrate. In this context, we might expect a note of caution on the part of more “mainstream” political leaders. Yet here we are, with our prime minister Turnbull acting like a kid on the beach with their boogie board on the first day of summer-holidays.
The message is clear: in the new world order under the leadership of Trump’s Mordor-America, Australia can be relied upon to continue in its role as faithful ally. Our very own alt-right freaks – the Pauline Hansons, Cory Bernadis and George Chistensens – can rejoice. In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there”.
