20 November 2024

ALAN HAYES

 

IN a Trumpian world, anything you do is permissible and acceptable – morals, merit and the law do not apply.

 

There is no doubt, however, that Donald Trump believes he is above the law – a pathetic narcistic pissant, who aligns himself with others that share his worldview.

 

Not only does Trump’s past and current team have ties to Russia, but he also does.

 

Trump has travelled to Russia extensively, done business there often, and has ties to Russian interests. In 2008 he made a real estate sale to Russian billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev that earned him US$54 million.

 

In a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office, he revealed highly classified information to the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. US media was banned from this meeting, but a Russian photographer was allowed in the session, later releasing these photos on the Russian state-owned news. By sharing highly sensitive information with an adversary foreign government, he was considered that he had breached the execution of his oath of office, but he was not impeached – it says a lot for American politics, which ultimately impact upon the rest of the world.

 

The problem with Trump sharing highly classified information with Russia meant that Congress, which was led at the time by Trump’s Republican party, would have had to agree that he should have been removed from office to trigger an impeachment trial. A majority of the House would have had to vote for it and a two-thirds majority of the Senate would have been required to agree to convict him – it just wasn’t going to happen. And now with the Republican control over U.S. government, Trump’s dictatorship is assured.

 

Trump has previously said in 2019 that he would “listen to and potentially take a foreign power's offer of ‘dirt' on a political opponent rather than report it to the FBI” - a brazen disregard for U.S. rule of law. So, what can the rest of the world expect from January 2025?

 

Trump’s cabinet pick has left world leaders scratching their heads! Of course, any sane person would have chosen individuals based on merit. In a Trumpian world, just like the machinations of Adolf Hitler as he rose to power, merit is a vice to be avoided, which makes his cabinet picks perfect. Why, because in Trump’s world, merit is the enemy and must be defeated at all cost.

 

Heading Trump’s list of would-be cohorts, but, in reality, not worth considering at all, is South Dakota governor and dog-killer Kristi Noem for homeland security - a position she has no background for but at least she has several years of executive experience in her current role. Fox talk show host Pete Hegseth comes next - deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan on his CV earned him the role as secretary of defence. The next lame-duck is right-wing senator Marco Rubio, who Senate foreign relations committee experience, secured him the the position of secretary of state – as speaker of the state House of Representatives, he was accused of using conservative action committee dollars for private expenditure; an episode that Marco Rubio had hoped was long forgotten, but came to light after a federal investigation instigated a top-to-toe examination of Florida Republican’s financial trickery. Last but not least is is vaccine sceptic and former independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr as his health secretary.

 

But what about Trump’s cabinet choices - do they really stack up? Documents obtained by the Washington Post provide detail about an allegation that Pete Hegseth sexually assaulted a woman in 2017. It was alleged Hegseth raped a then-30-year-old conservative group staffer in his room after drinking at a hotel bar.

 

Hegseth’s lawyer said that Hegseth was “visibly intoxicated” at the time of the incident, and maintained that police, who were contacted a few days after the encounter by the woman, concluded that “the Complainant had been the aggressor in the encounter. Yet to date, police have not confirmed that assertion.

 

If Hegseth’s lawyer is to be believed, why did Hegseth agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of money to the woman? Hegseth claimed he feared that revelation of the matter “would result in his immediate termination from Fox,” where he worked as a host.

 

Trump’s choice of Kristi Noem erupted in a political firestorm , when it was revealed that, while brandishing a shotgun, despatched a dog and goat to the ‘animal ether’.

 

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, before describing how she shot the dog and the goat in the same gravel pit, the goat having to be shot twice, the second shotgun blast after Noem left the goat to fetch more shells from her truck.

 

But the madness doesn't stop with his first three amigos. Kennedy, commonly known by his initials RFK Jr, has a history of spreading health information that scientists say is false. If his nomination is ratified by the Senate, he will lead a huge agency overseeing everything from food safety to medical research and welfare programmes. The executive director of the American Public Health Association (APHA) said the organisation will "absolutely oppose" Kennedy's nomination.

 

After Trump’s choices came the proposed appointments — they’re all subject to Senate approval, and since the Republicans will control the Senate they're guaranteed — that looks like angling for absolute control; trolling with a Republican fishing net.

 

Then, of course, we have the Elon Musk, and the former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, appointment to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. Despite the name, the department will not be a government agency but will work from outside government to offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget. “It’s an approach to create an entrepreneurial approach to government,” Trump said.

 

With the appointment of Elon Musk to Department of Government Efficiency, the stage is now set for one of Trump’s biggest backers to wield his newfound political influence – smells more like a scheme so that the rich can get richer, while the middle-class rubes that voted for Trump continue to enjoy a mediocre existence on ‘struggle street’.

 

Australia and the rest of the world

 

Let’s not be reflective on the new Trumpian Second-Reich, because it was already spreading around the world. The rise of the far right extremists is the defining story of our century so far, which has many governments in a panic – Trump’s victory saw Anthony Albanese flying off to G20 Summit in Brasil on a trade rescue mission.

 

Albanese has held talks with global leaders in a desperate bid to cement free trade agreements, despite the prospect of mammoth tariffs that could ignite a trade war when Donald Trump takes office as US president in January.

 

Albo has played down the prospect of a hit to the Australian economy from Trump’s policies, saying that he had had a good phone conversation with the president-elect. “I’m very confident that the relationship between Australia and the United States will continue to be very strong.”

 

Yet Albanese’s trade talks are a clear indication of what may happen with a ‘madman in the Whitehouse’.

 

But it’s not just the extreme far-right psychosis in the U.S., which is a problem, it’s the homologues in elected office in Argentina in the form of Javier Milei; in Hungary’s Viktor Orbán; in Italy’s Giorgia Meloni; in Austria; in the Netherlands; in India.

 

Around the world, far-right agitators are nourished by the weapons-grade, blood-and-soil misogyny of the international manosphere. The same motivation that drives race riots and violent attacks on asylum seekers in the UK, neo-Nazi rallies on the streets of Melbourne, and the hostility that drives gun massacres in the US. A despicable attitude that is influenced by the so-called 'Great Replacement conspiracy theory', one which is embedded in Trump’s own racist and deeply fascist and white supremacist views.

 

So, why should Australia be concerned?

 

The United States of America has always been a bogeyman for those of us who pride ourselves on living in what we see as superior democracies, in which extremists and billionaires have not captured major institutions. But our relief should not mask the fact that the tentacular reach of the far right, boosted by unregulated, billionaire-owned social platforms, touches all of us, everywhere.

 

While the U.S. far right wields enormous power worldwide, it is in fact in a symbiotic relationship with fascistic and extreme-right groups elsewhere – it is rising our doorstep.

 

So, Anthony Albanese would do better to address the rising tide of far-right movements sprouting up in our own backyards than to pat himself on the back for a job well done at the recent trade talks if he hopes to win the 2025 election  - the birth of Trumpism, and its ever-spreading tide, is staring him in the face.

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