The snivelling apprentice

Everybody knows that Trump is a pathological liar¹, a conman^2,3, a sexual predator⁴, a racist⁵, a misogynist^6,7, an inarticulate buffoon⁸, and takes credit for the efforts of others⁹. He is also clearly a malignant narcissist^10,11. The last of these has been clearly demonstrated by his toddler-like refusal to concede he lost the US presidential election. It is indeed fortunate that he has lost the presidential election by a significant margin¹² in that it demonstrates that enough people, even many of those left behind by the corrupt system that generates people like Trump, will not stand for such behaviour enough to give the Mango Mussolini a second term.

While many people in Australia have looked on in horror at the crass, malevolent behaviour of Trump and thought ‘it couldn’t happen here’, we are not too far away from it happening. Indeed, some years ago, I likened the narcissistic pathological liar, racist, misogynist and inarticulate buffoon that was Tony Abbott, to the Mango Mussolini¹³. However, I think he was simply a concatenation of similar idiocies, and not someone who took his methodology from Trump, as he predated Trump by some years. However, we now have a Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, who has largely modelled himself on Trump.

Trump’s pathological lying is habitual and often about things which are inconsequential, but Morrison’s lying is not. It is planned, and is designed to bullshit the audience to whom he is speaking, many of whom are naïve enough to take him at face value. His lies are often related to Climate Change^14,15, about which he tries to pretend Australia is doing something significant to decrease emissions (it is not).

When Trump is asked a question and doesn’t want to answer, he tends to ramble on incoherently while not answering the question. Morrison is a bit more sophisticated in his responses. Sometimes he will ramble on tangentially (more or less coherently) without actually answering the question. If he does not have the presence of mind to do this, he will avoid answering by uttering such drivel as ‘I do not agree with the premise of your question’, ‘that is a Canberra bubble question’, ‘I have already answered that’, ‘you already have my response to that’, ‘you can editorialise on that…’, or ‘I don’t agree with your characterisation of that’¹⁶. Sometimes, when Trump is stumped by his inability to respond to (or perhaps understand) a question, he will simply get up and leave the interview¹⁷. Morrison has done the same when things get a little difficult, and the questions get a bit pointed^18,19.

Trump is clearly racist and instances of that have been well documented over the years⁵. Disturbingly, Morrison is also a racist, like so many in the Liberal Party. It was he who suggested, in a shadow cabinet meeting, that concern by knuckle-draggers in the community about Muslims failing to integrate in Australia could be used as a political tool¹⁹. Morrison has also been guilty of stoking fear of Muslims in the community²⁰, so his denial of the shadow cabinet story rings hollow. The government has always been willing to use the dog whistle whenever it suited them, and Morrison has almost always been in the thick of it^21,22,23.

Morrison, like Trump, is clearly a misogynist, not in the sense of hating women, but in the sense of thinking everyone should own one, and thinks they should submit to men, as the various branches of his pentecostal cult seems to endorse²⁴. This was clear also from his answer to a question regarding disciplining of ministers Aland Tudge and Christian Porter after the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners ‘Canberra Bubble’ episode, which exposed their affair and inappropriate behaviour, respectively, with staffers. Morrison replied that he would do nothing because these occurred before then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull imposed the ‘bonk ban’ (the ban on politicians having sexual relations with staffers)²⁵. The two men are still in their jobs, but the women are gone.

Morrison’s misogyny was further emphasised in a bizarre press conference with the Minister for Families and Social Services, Anne Ruston. Ruston was asked about the culture towards women in the Liberal Party by Phil Coorey, who asked “As a woman in government, your reflections on the culture inside; has it got better, worse or no change since the ‘bonk ban’?” Half way through Ruston’s first sentence in reply, Morrison simply started speaking over the top of her, such that she shut up. Morrison took umbrage at the reference to calling Turnbull’s ‘code’ a ‘bonk ban’. Ruston was allowed to complete her answer only after Morrison’s diatribe. Morrison’s speaking over the top of Ruston made international news in the UK and the US²⁶.

Again, like Trump, Morrison is quite happy to take credit for the work others do. This has been brought into stark relief following the phenomenal success of the strategy used by Victorian Premier, Dan Andrews and his Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton in dealing with the second wave of Covid-19. At its peak in early August, they were getting nearly 700 new cases per day, now they have had 16 days with no new cases at all²⁷, despite keeping up a testing regime averaging over 15,000 tests per day²⁸. Their intense, relatively long lockdown, their testing regime and the compulsory wearing of masks clearly were exceptionally successful. The Federal government, the Liberal State opposition and both Murdoch’s Herald Sun ‘newspaper’ and his silly Sky News television channel, as well as other far right organisations, tried furiously to make life difficult for Andrews and Sutton, calling the former ‘Dictator Dan’, and Victoria ‘Danandrewstan’ among other juvenile epithets^29,30,31. They also encouraged anti-lockdown protesters, and generally sniped constantly, mostly with the aim of making the Victorian opposition relevant. This clearly failed, as Andrews approval rating has soared while that of the opposition has plummeted³².

It was Morrison who said in the middle of July, when Victoria was experiencing about 200 new cases per day, that “The best protection against the virus [is] to live alongside the virus, and to open up your economy. You don’t protect your economy by continually shutting things down”³³. Now Morrison has stated that he is advising US President-Elect Joe Biden on Australia’s success in handling the Covid-19 pandemic³⁴. After constantly sniping and trying to undermine Daniel Andrews during Victoria’s battle, one would hope Morrison simply gave Andrews’ e-mail address to Biden to find out how Victoria was so successful. However, in Morrison’s case that would be a forlorn hope, especially when there is the fatherhood of success to be claimed.

Morrison is much like Trump, but Trump’s loss will have sent a chill down Morrison’s spine, because it has shown that the techniques used by both; the lying, the obfuscation, the refusal to answer questions, the science denial, etc., have a limited lifespan. Furthermore, Biden’s determination to do something about decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, will make Australia a pariah. Morrison will not be able to hide his own venality and stupidity behind that of Trump any more.

Sources

6 Comments

Russell says:

November 15, 2020 at 10:57 am

The main difference between Trump and Scomo is in the former’s outright, in-ya-face asserting of his point of view, even if it is usually half-baked and illogical. Scomo doesn’t show that brash courage that made the Apprentice Boss what he is now…President of a major nation for good or ill, and that question is easily answered of course! Morrison’s style is patently meeker, although he blusters with big talk and seemingly important announcements. He strikes me as intellectually limited and prone to use very stock old political ploys. In other words Scomo is even less colorful a character than Trump, who for all his loopy carry-on and bizarre style of ruling, made us smile at his sheer chutzpah. Morrison is one’s common domestic rat – wheedling, laughably inflating any minor achievement, nervy with informing the electorate, evading and stalling on critical issues despite solid demand from good citizens. Scomo is a dull, run-of-mill political poseur. who is right for the dark times we live in. Takes no big chances, advances no long-term policies containing sparks of vision for the longer term. He’s rather illustrative of how this nation has sunk in many ways into a pit of slackness, of over-saturation on our pressing sociopolitical concerns. It’s a mental paralysis, a staleness which other nations like China are keenly aware of, and will no doubt exploit. Are there alternatives to this Prime “Mediocinister” Morrison? Nobody regularly in the TV news strikes me as even brave enough to step up to challenge Scomo with a true vision. If you hope that Squib Albanese is the answer to our Canberra crisis of leadership, I fear you are more desperate than I could ever be. What to do, I do not know.

- admin says:
  
  November 15, 2020 at 11:36 am
  
  Russell,
  I think the assessment of Morrison as Rattus norvegicus, the common rat is reasonably accurate. However, he has the morality of a racecourse urger. That is a person who hangs around horseraces, and for each race goes around to his marks and gives each a tip for a different horse. When the race is over, he goes back to the specific mark to whom he tipped the winning horse, and asks them for a cut of the winnings. That seems to me an accurate description of Morrison’s morality, and the media are too useless to pick him up on it.
  
Russell says:

November 15, 2020 at 11:05 am

Hi Admin. Please print the main body of my contribution, BUT MINUS THE FIRST PARAGRAPH. THAT ONE SEEMS UNNECESSARY AND REDUNDANT IN THE WHOLE PIECE.
Thanks, R.

- admin says:
  
  November 15, 2020 at 11:27 am
  
  Russell,
  Done.
  
Michael Peters says:

December 1, 2020 at 8:58 am

What is it about people like Rupert and his sycophants, and #ScottyfromMarketing and his drongoes, whose mentality extends only to identifying themselves by the opposite of an opponent – Murdoch and LNP instinctively knew immediately, without having to admit it, that Andrews/Sutton were on the winning response to covid YET, as an auto response, spent all their resources just to be opposed to the risk of the rest of us at such an unfamiliar and challenging time – not having anything original or the ability of looking in the same direction is LNP’s handcuffs – only thing left to find is an anchor.

- admin says:
  
  December 2, 2020 at 11:50 am
  
  Michael,
  It is something which has amazed me in recent years. How the science of epidemiology and climate science could be conceived as something left wing and therefore to be opposed at all costs, is dumbfounding. I’d love to know how it happened, because I think it will show something very disturbing about our society.

The snivelling apprentice

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