In which the pond goes mad with the bromancer, sheds tears with our Gracie, and taunts professional herpetologists with nattering "Ned: ,,,

Of course the pond had to start with the bromancer this weekend … surely that goes without saying.

Who else could match his magisterial insights, verging as they always do on paranoid madness?

Strangely however the pond was first reminded of a quote that Chris Hayes dragged out, because the pond can never get enough Orwellian moments into the discussion:

“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.”

Hayes twisted this into the observation that doing nothing about the virus was to be objectively pro-virus.

However assorted Republicans in the United States have slowly begun to realise that ...

“Both-siderism is objectively pro-Donald Trumpist narcissist snake-oil selling monarchism. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.”

This should be kept in mind throughout the bromancer's special pleading for the Donald. Anyone who can begin with an image of the Donald soaring like an eagle on the wind is either listening to the wrong sort of music, or is seriously deranged and delusional:

Actually if anyone deserved the Leon Trotsky award for ideological madness, it surely must be the bromancer himself, though the pond understands that natural self-modesty (something the Donald wouldn't share) prevented him from putting his name forward. 

Speaking of awards, the Donald of course claimed for years that he was once named 'Michigan Man of the Year', an award that didn't exist, and made sure that a fake cover of Time magazine featuring himself was on in a prominent position in at least five of his golf courses …

So many bizarre moments, by golly that has to be worth a cartoon …

That's appropriate because somehow the bromancer manages to do a Kayleigh (much bigger and better than a Karen) by imagining the Donald has said and done brave and even wise things - is there no end to the bone spurs mythology? And even better, he does a McEnany by proposing "there is no serious evidence that Trump is a racist."

Funnily enough you don't have to look far. There's a wiki Racial views of Donald Trump, there's a Vox story Donald Trump's long history of racism from the 1970s to 2020, and there's a story in The Atlantic, An Oral History of Trump's Bigotry … and they were just the first three to turn up in the google machine celebrating the thoughts of the 'grab 'em by the pussy' man … (yes, you could do exactly the same for his misogyny.

Sheesh, and yet somehow the pond ends up with the blathering bromancer … celebrating objectively pro-Trumpian racism ...

The pond has no real explanation as to why the bromancer is so determined to be blind to reality and to pander to the narcissist snake oil salesman, but is grateful for the opportunity to throw in a few cartoons …

It will be noted that the bromancer is using the same sort of Orwellian logic that the pond has been celebrating. If you happen to think that the Donald is a loon and a con artist and comes from a seriously dysfunctional family, and has major psychological problems, you must by definition be anti-west, and so on and so forth ...

The notion that Trump supports Martin Luther King Jr's vision is simply absurd, but then when you walk with the bromancer you must expecting melting clocks in the surreal landscape. 

The day that the bromancer can dig up a King speech celebrating the Confederate flag as freedom of speech, as opposed to a symbol of slavery and treason and the lynching mindset - is the day that the pond will run a gobbet of his with pleasure, instead of feeling the urgent need to drop in another cartoon …

It's bad … the bromancer is on a long bender this day, and it's a truly weird one, and the contortions he has to go through to defend the Donald are pretty amazing …

Meanwhile, as if in another country, entirely removed from the reality of what's happening …

But at last the pond has reached the final stop on the bromancer viral express ...

Talk about a fuckwitted conflation and confusion, as if somehow the grifter narcissist Donald represents the West, and the rest is a deep malaise. 

To diagnose that sort of stupidity, you'd have to go back to the days when the bromancer was a fundamentalist Catholic uni drop out getting his jollies from the culture wars, but the pond would rather just drop an immortal Rowe into the mix …

There's more Rowe here, but the pond would first like to take a detour with our Gracie before heading off to climb the Everest known as nattering "Ned" ...

There's something about what our Gracie scribbles this day that suggests she's for turning. 

Why she might have once found a home at Fairfax, in the days when Fairfax was a thing, or she might even yearn to be on the ABC, because her piece is full of pain, of a kind that could only have been induced by reading her fellow reptiles ...

Now the pond hates to quibble with any of this, but please, that talk of Melburnians only talking about property prices is plain wrong. 

Melburnians always talk about Sydney's obsession with property prices, and the pond is pleased to report that they're right to do so (has the pond ever mentioned the value of its property, and the daily missives from real estate agents, and daily tours of the area to check on the condition of properties, the rash of leasings and recent sales?)

As for why News Corp hates Melbourne, it's simple enough. Whatever our Gracie says, it's a snake-pit of socialists ruining the entire West, with only the Bolter on hand to person the fortifications, while Comrade Dan leads the Maoists towards a Jonestown drowning in the murky, muddy Yarra. Or so it would seem if you restricted your diet to munching on the reptiles, completely unmoved by the suffering of others...

Has our Gracie never read the bromancer, or other of her comrade reptiles in full rhetorical flight? Does she realise she's veering dangerously close to undermining the entire Western enterprise with her wild talk of all this loathing?

Dear sweet long absent lord, such is her love of Melbourne that our Gracie is now off in the thick grass of treachery and treason. This traitor is becoming a rat in the reptile ranks, she's going way too far, she even has a kind word for comrade Dan ...

To say that the pond was deeply shocked is something of an understatement. His frank style and brevity?

What a wealth, an abundance, of heresy and treason. Here lies the entire West laid waste.

Or so it might seem? But what if our Gracie is right? What if she's in need of some kind of solution?

Might the pond humbly suggest one? 

Kill off News Corp and much of the anti-Melburnian rhetoric would disappear in a trice, and we would discover that we are all Australian, as celebrated by the infallible Pope this day …

You see, the pond will now provide an example of anti-Victorian sentiment of the kind that so agitates our Gracie. Perforce it will require heroic endurance to discover … and it will also serve as the pond's bonus for the day,  though it shouldn't really be considered a bonus, so much as an endless slap in the face, necessary to keep from nodding off …

As usual, before beginning a bout with nattering "Ned", the pond must start with a disclaimer … anyone entering here should be a long time reader of the reptiles, a devoted, expert and professional herpetologist, and the pond is not responsible for foolish amateurs who might discover the experience can be fatal ...

But what's the pond to do? The reptiles have blessed "Ned" with a Lobbecke, and the cult master has returned from his break firing on all one cylinder … apparently after he gave the 'roo and the bird a mask, he began to run a little short of inspiration. Couldn't there have been at least a hint of blood on the wattle, as a tip of the hat to Lawson?

Never mind, the fatuities of "Ned" begin with the header - the first wave never went away, and that's why we're still contending with containing the virus … and frankly if anyone in NSW thinks that social distancing and responsible behaviour is still all the go, let it be noted that the pond must be the last one still wearing a mask when out and about …

And now to add to our Gracie's suffering, comrade Dan is about to cop some more blame for ruining it all, as if frivolous behaviour and stupidity is confined to the sparrows of the south ...

As usual with "Ned's" nattering, it's not about the virus so much as how can SloMo be kept in power, so that the rich can keep on keeping on … that's the real anxiety that lurks underneath all this, not the dangers to people, but the dangers to SloMo and his mob ...

Now for the professional reptile lover, there's a lot in that gobbet. Who else but "Ned" could pursue the blame game and denounce arrogant Dan, and then announce that the blame game doesn't work, and that pursuing ideological antagonisms doesn't help, which is to say that reading "Ned" doesn't help at all, and he himself is confused, and SloMo might be in danger, and then at the end of it all, comes those fateful words "there are three conclusions",  a sure sign that "Ned" is going to head off on an extended bout of concluding ...

By this time, astute pond readers will note the pond's usual symptoms of distress. Laboured breathing, glazed eyes, torpid movements, a sense of numbness in limbs and mind, and "Ned" himself following his patented formula of posing as a guru by endlessly quoting another guru …

Yes, the cartoons have fallen by the wayside, yes the pond can barely touch the keyboard without feeling immense economic damage, yes the pond feels like it's somewhere on the bridge of sorrowful sighs to nowhere ... 

Sure, there are minor pleasures to be found. That talk of the gravity of America's mistake looming large means that nattering "Ned" has unwittingly placed himself in the cross-hairs of the bromancer.

That irrational hatred of the Donald and his handling of the virus is just part of the irrational hatred of he West, and a symptom of a deep malaise within the West, which every Trumpist and the bromancer is right to call out …

Oh surely one cartoon wouldn't hurt, one that celebrates the malaise?

And with that the pond is pleased to advise there are only a couple of short gobbets to go, though "Ned's" handwringing will rise to hysterical fever pitch as his time on the stage gets shorter ...

And after that little burst, warning there are no free kicks, what better way to wrap up this endless, interminable, ennui-inducing natter than with an insight so banal that it burst the banks of the pond's tolerance ...

"The real pain from COVID-19 lies ahead …"

All that guff to reach a point where "Ned" is reduced to typing the bleeding obvious?

The United States is comprehensively fucked, Xi and Putin emboldened, the world economy stuffed, and some real pain lies ahead?

Who'd have guessed it, who would have wasted precious hours of their precious lives to reach that point?

At least the bromancer was entertaining, but if we're ever to renegotiate to some form of normal, we must decide whether we're on the reptile train, sitting in the second class section at the rear, while the Donald plays with the horn, or we join with others to tackle the canker at the core, knowing that the entrenched walls of Murdochism and Donaldism are strong, and if that's where the west is headed, then the west, and sadly, even Melbourne and sweet Gracie, are deeply fucked …