A special case
THERE are a couple of transcripts that may define the memory of Donald J Trump.
The first was prior to his presidency, during a TV show called Access Hollywood.
His words are utterly memorable and set the tone for his political life:
“I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it ... I did try and XXX her. She was married ... and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture’. I took her out furniture ... I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab ’em by the XXX. You can do anything.”
If the CEO of a major company had said the same words, they would find themselves in crisis management and then a quick resignation would be handed to the board.
But history tells us there are special rules for Trump.
The release of this recording was not enough to stop him from becoming leader of the free world. The recording didn’t even dent the brand. Trump dismissed the conversation as “locker room talk” and the host of Access Hollywood was fired. Trump got away with it.
The Republican Party supported him and he went on to grab the country by the electoral college and move his family into the White House.
The other transcript is the documentation of the recent phone call between Trump and the President of Ukraine.
This was no secret. Trump released this one himself.
The document reveals Trump up asking for help from a foreign power to investigate a domestic political rival. .
The words are clear. He first asks for a “favour” and then ...
“The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney-General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.”
This is un-presidential and un-American and now the cause of f an impeachment inquiry.
Trump however is using this as a banner to rally his frenzied supporters.
He continually describes this phone call as “a perfect call”. This incredibly positive self-assessment is the height of arrogance and an insight to his unbridled narcissism.
It should be bizarre to hear a world leader talk about themselves in this fashion, but it’s not. There are special rules for Trump. We not only accept his arrogance, we enable it.
He has belittling nicknames for political opponents. The Mueller probe into Russian influence in the elections turned in their findings and Trump dismissed all the findings without any detailed reading as a “witch hunt”.
His anti-social tweeting is now reaching epic proportions. His contempt for debate and analysis is evident in his assessment of the free press.
“A corrupt media is so bad for our country! In actuality, the media may be even worse more corrupt than the Bidens, which is hard to do!”
He hates being wrong, he will throw anybody under the bus to protect his reputation and we seem to have just accepted this is OK.
But this behaviour is a long way from “locker room talk”.
It’s hard to imagine Scott Morrison surviving the Access Hollywood recording. But in context it’s even harder to imagine a Christian Australian prime minister like Scott Morrison being friends with somebody who was happy to talk about women in that fashion.
But for some reason, there’s been a whole new set of rules created for this guy. There are always exceptions for Trump.
Australia should not be promising to assist this president to investigate his opponents and we should not be shelling out $150 million to help him take a man to Mars. We should be diplomatic and keeping this firecracker at a healthy distance. There is no point pumping up Trump’s tyres if it means puncturing our own future relations.
Trump will be gone eventually, but China will always be here.