not only the words, but the meaning

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, 3 October 2019. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Comrades,

The two press conferences DJ Trump held with the President of Finland mid-week were a supreme example of The Donald's existential stream-of-consciousness poetry, or as I read somewhere "straight out of the Theatre of the Absurd". Sauli Niinistö did a great job keeping a straight face, but Finish reporters did note that there were times when he struggled very hard not to go into a full-blown Nordic crack-up, which would bring new meaning to the expression LOL. President Niinistö was required to say very little as there was no chance to get a word in edgeways, but when he did, he grabbed the opportunity to take a not so oblique swipe. “Mr. President, you have here a great democracy. Keep it going on.”

Soon after the Trumpotus rigged the Electoral College to achieve the status of Leader of The Free World, I read a fascinating article about the difficulties French translators had in interpreting the utterances of The Donald, as they made no grammatical sense whatever in English, and when put together as a whole, made no sense at all. The French are very particular about words, [very particular, just ask the Académie Française], and after a meeting of minds, the translators decided that there was nothing for it but to translate every single word literally, so DJ! made even less than no sense in French, and there is no doubting that even that is possible.

The Trumpotus is really getting all riled up about the prospect of being impeached, saying [twice] that the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee wouldn't be able to carry the Secretary of State's "blank strap", before going on to say “He should be forced to resign from Congress, Adam Schiff. He’s a lowlife. He should be forced to resign. It was all fabricated. He should resign from office in disgrace. Frankly they should look at him for treason because he is making up the words of the President of the United States. Not only words, but the meaning and it’s a disgrace".

Not only the words, but the meaning. Ah huh. If he was smart, he would use that as his major defence at his upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate, along the lines of 'you can't accuse me of any hokey-pokey with the President of the Ukraine in our "beautiful conversation", or openly encouraging a foreign power to meddle in our elections, by calling on Chairman Ping of China to get all the dirt he can on the low down corruption of the Bidens, because as any French translator will tell you, my words make no sense and congressmen then go around making up words and putting them in the President's mouth, and not only the words, but the meaning, too'. Off the hook, right there.

All that said and done, in private, DJ! was making perfect sense in his phone call to Kiev; The Donald even seems to know what quid pro quo means. Talking like a mobster, the Trumpotus used extortionist gangster style negotiating techniques, "you've gotta give me something I need for the protection I'm offering, otherwise them Ruskies are going to over-run your joint and fuck-you-up-the-arse". That's persausive. Guns for blackmail dirt would make a great raison d'être for any Mafia boss worth his salt. As far as impeachments go, Clinton can be entirely disregaded as precedent, as it all began with a just quick, simple head job in the Oval Office, which let's face it, is very small beer indeed in The Age of Trump. It's better to go back to the appalling Andrew Jackson's impeachment in 1868 [which failed by a single vote in the Senate] as a guideline for "high crimes and misdemenours".

Much has been said on the brain state of the Trumpotus, many accusing him of being mentally ill [which is is not; while he is the quintessential narcissist, in his own mind he knows exactly what he's doing, even if others are not so sure], a more convincing theory is that he is sliding into not-so-early onset dementia.

I have read Donald Hall's illuminating biography Notes of Nearing Ninety [he never made it, dying at 89]. I mention this only because Hall was once a Poet Laureate of the United States and his stated aim in life was "to confuse the hell out of everyone". He remained lucid to the very end. One story struck me. Once a month Hall would visit a dear old friend who was in a nursing home for the demented. His friend would listen to him for hours on end, making pertinent comments here and there. At the end of one conversation he asked his friend if there was anything he could do for him or get for him to which he replied "no, not really, because you know what Donald? I have absolutely no idea who I am". Of course it would be no surprise if DJ Trump! ends up in a State Home for The Bewildered, but it would not be pleasant. He would be a violent, paranoid patient requiring heavy sedation and a straight jacket to protect him from the entire world, which is quite obviously out to get him, big time.

Back on the home front, and Scomo is not doing himself any favors at the moment, going on the campaign trail with The Donald while on his US tour, where the best he could come up with is "we're making jobs great again". That'd be most comforting to the millions of Australians working shit jobs. And overnight he's taken up the Trumpian mantra of "globalisation-is-fucked" in what the ABC reported this morning as a "thinly veiled swipe at the UN". Scomo seems intent on lurching the Liberal Party further to the right than Genghis Khan, especially when he has ministers going around saying any increase to the Newstart allowance would be a gift to drug dealers, and another saying climate change protesters should have their measly social security and student allowances cut to ribbons, not to mention those old male white Tories who privately refer to Greta Thunberg as a "spastic".

It's a wonderful world, aint it?