While our parliament houses will not be stormed any time soon, Sky News is still around, as is Rupert Murdoch, Trump’s great backer, and The Australian. So, too, are George, Pauline and Craig.
Have you heard the nostalgia band currently playing in RSL clubs in rural towns? Little Johnny & the Trumpettes? On the mouth organ is band leader Johnny (“Sparkles”) Howard; there’s Joey (“Chuckles”) Hockey playing the buffoon, sorry, bassoon. Then there is Micky (“Cow Gate”) McCormack on the cow bell. What a virtuoso! And last up is Scotty (“Holidays”) Morrison on the spoons.
The band’s travelling from one climate-killed town to the next. Playing for two bob. Trying to get their sounds louder than the pokies. It wasn’t always like this. These men were something … once. Johnny Howard was, for heaven’s sake, the Prime Minister of Australia. He even got the US Medal of Freedom, bestowed on him by George Bush. The proudest day of Johnny’s life. Poor guy thought he was getting all medalled up for his contribution to the War on Terror. No, it was a new Boy Scout patch for being a lapdog to American interests.
Band leader Johnny really loved all things American. Hell, he even said some lovely words about Donald Trump. Speaking at a US Studies Centre event titled “Howard on Trump”, six months after Trump slithered into the White House, Johnny said he did not believe Trump was a racist. All while Trump was dropping clues that white is the only right as fast as he was shedding orange dandruff. The rest of the world knew Trump was a racist. Johnny, never one for perspicacious wisdom, figured otherwise.
Johnny also warned us not to rush to judgment on Trump. “I think people who are writing him off now are foolish. And a lot of people who are doing that still can’t accept that they lost.” Asked about Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement, Howard said (again) that he, like Trump, remained a climate sceptic (Hi Tony!). described himself as increasingly sceptical of climate change.
Then there is bassoonist “Chuckles” Hockey. Before that incarnation he was the best Treasurer for big business since Peter (“Cheshire”) Costello. After that mediocre stint Hockey accepted a job for the boys and became Australia’s ambassador to the court of mad king Donny. Another mediocre stint but a great time to play golf. Hockey was often seen on Trump’s courses, playing with the man himself.
Hockey’s thoughts on Trump? According to Peter Hartcher, from the Sydney Morning Herald:
“Everyone keeps underestimating him. It’s a major mistake.” Trump was not merely a political leader but “the leader of a movement” that commands the unswerving devotion of about one-third of the American population, regardless of criticisms and revelations. Trump has come to “own” patriotism as a potent political tool, he said. Indeed, he’s even more likely to win re-election today than he was six months ago.”
So wonderful was their relationship that Hockey stayed on in Washington to reap what he had sown. He now runs a political lobby push group called Bondi Partners.
On its website he still describes himself as “Ambassador Hockey”. He planned to position himself on K Street with a shed full of pro-Trump contacts he met along the way. Problem was, Trump became toxic soon after Bondi Partners opened. That’s how “Chuckles” found himself playing the bassoon in Boggabri.
Next up is Michael (“Cow Gate”) McCormack. When asked for his response to the insurrection in Washington on 6 January, he could not contain his “fury”. The riot was all terribly “unfortunate”. “Unfortunate”? Is this guy on medication? The world he sees through the cow gate grill is not the same world the rest of us see. In that interview McCormack used words like fire blankets. But we knew that the real McCormack, the Trump supporter, the guy who called the Black Lives matter protests a “race riot”, was wriggling to be set free. “There was destruction,” he said. “There was uninsured property that business owners then have to dig deep into their own pockets to rebuild.” That’s after the Black Lives Matter protest by the way. This is our deputy prime minister talking.
Speaking of which, the last band member to meet is Scotty (“Holidays”) Morrison. There are two photo images I keep in my head. One of them makes me ashamed to be an Australian. The other gives me hope.
The first was taken on Morrison’s last visit to the US in September 2020. It’s an up-close image of the Morrison and Trump on the south lawn of the White House. Their shoulders are touching; heads close together; Morrison is smiling, like he just offered Trump an enormous compliment; Trump has that self-satisfied look he gets when a sycophant has delivered a gift to his ego. Trump called him a “man of titanium”. Poor Johnny had to do with “man of steel”.
When the man of titanium returned to Australia, he took a call from Trump who asked him to gather information to assist an inquiry to jeopardise the Mueller Inquiry and Morrison agreed to assist. He was in love and love can be blind to ethical and legal standards. Trump then got Morrison on board to push for an international investigation into the origins of the corona virus. Trump wanted so badly for the evidence to show it started in China. Morrison, still in love, said yes again.
Morrison, the Pentecostalist, standing with Trump the [add your own words] is a shameful photo.
Cut to the next photo when Trump calls in on Pope Francis. Trump and Melania are all smiles. Francis is glum, disapproving and cannot wait to get the hell out. No airs and graces here. Just the photo of a man who has smelt raw sewage.
Trump is gone (sort of). Trumpism is heading our way. In a brilliant essay for Crikey, Kishor Napier-Raman got it right when he said that after the Berlin Wall fell, predatory capitalism “had become so dominant that it was dogma even for centre-left parties in the West”. When it started to fray: “Trumpian populism turned up with a brutally effective solution.”
It’s as if Trump said:
“Your lives might be shit, but here, I’ll give you an outlet for your rage. We might be working to line the pockets of our super-rich friends and family while you toil away working four de-unionised jobs in the gig economy, but here’s why you should direct that hatred towards Democrats, China, Muslims, immigrants and Antifa instead.”
The version we are seeing in Australia is Trump-lite. Our parliament houses will not be stormed any time soon. But Johnny and the Trumpettes are still around. Sky News is still around. Murdoch, Trump’s great backer, is still around. The Australian is still around. So are George and Pauline and Craig.
Dr William De Maria is a Brisbane based writer and political commentator.
Comments
9 responses to “Latest hits from His Master’s Voice – Little Johnny and the Trumpettes”
Mr Morrison said that in the last days of the Trump administration he phoned Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo to wish them well. Both religious fundamentalists. Like Mr Morrison. Religious fundamentalism was the real connection between Mr Morrison and the Trump administration.
Mr Morrison never phoned Mr Trump.
Religious fundamentalism is a serious threat to liberal democracy everywhere. Including Australia.
For how long will Howard be allowed his ‘legacy’ of avoiding issues round fossil fuels and climate science, hollowing out the Liberal Party membership and grounded policy development, while moving its heart to Sydney (from Melbourne)?
This was in tandem with the weaponisation of the IPA pushing libertarian policies (imported from the US via Koch AtlasNetwork) and Murdoch/NewsCorp being given free rein (reign?) to do whatever without constraint, while being political activists and LNP PR agency, masquerading as a media outfit….
All supported by ageing monocultural demographics in the permanent population (catered to), especially regional, before Australia’s diversity catches up and stops falling for white Angl/Irish Christian nationalist agitprop on sociolcultural issues.
Brilliant !!!
Entertaining piece about our brain dead, bad-faith politics. Plus generating well-deserved ridicule could actually be effective. Loved ‘holidays’ Morrison!
Wonderful irony and humour William.
I have a hollow titanium tube holding up my right leg. It is a constant reminder of the hollow man with the supercilious smirk, given to self-edification having the gift of speaking in unknown tongues.
Brilliant
Mr De Maria, I like this piece. Irony works like a balm on the despairing. The Australian public no longer has the assurance of politicians in government distributed on a normal curve but one skewed towards the extreme right. Even when they are distributed on a horizontal scale of knowledge or informed state, they are distorted towards the lower end. How we end up with a picnic basket in a banquet is anybody’s guess! I sense, like Trumpism and Brexit, it suggests bigotry. After all, if our erstwhile Attorney General tells us that people have the right to be bigots, bigotry has a better chance to rear its ugly head.
I think it has more to done with the dumbing of the Australian mind. The only matter of importance is money for many people and the Stuff-you,-I-am-alright mentality. All this fired by the continuing extreme right neo liberal ideology that is damaging our society.
Trumpism is post-industrial racism. Just as Trump activated the white supremacist US working class Morrison has done it with the sinophobic working class in Australia. That this will cost thousands of jobs and condemn Australia to a second rate status in Asia is of no concern to these racists. We have the marines and the fleet will visit regularly. We are either at the table of Asian dominance or we are on the menu. So many Australians just believe their relatively high standard of living ill continue because they are Australians. The Duterte government plans to triple the Philippines income per capita in the next two decades to transform the country into a prosperous middle-class society free of poverty by 2040. This implies that the Philippine economy needs to grow at an annual average of 6.5 percent in the next 22 years, faster than the average growth of 5.3 percent since 2000—a challenge that only PRC has managed to accomplish in the past. Now the Philippines has kicked the US marines out and is looking to emulate the PRC model to eliminate the wretched poverty in the Philippines. While Australia has the marines and the very real possibility of declining standard of living as we cling to the yesterday of white supremacy in Asia.