A truly challenging Sunday meditation triptych, featuring the dog bother, Polonial prattle and a huge "Ned" Everest climb ...with a few toons to sooth tired eyes ...

 

The pond had a change of heart. 

After promising "Ned" and Polonius this day, the pond discovered that they were so deadly dull that the dog botherer really shouldn't be overlooked. He could be as boring as them, so why shouldn't he have a place in the pond sun?

The pond had gladly ruled out Dame Slap. Just the pitch sent shudders through the system ...Degrees now depend on woke ideology, Making students mouth a form of political speech and assessing their fervour is nuts – but it’s happening.

Perhaps it's because the pond grew up in the days of monarchists and colonialists and Vietnam war mongers and adventurers ...

The pond wasn't even tempted by the wavering, quavering image ...

The only reason to mention it was so that the pond could link to David Gerard's post News Corp fills out tabloid papers with AI slop: NewsGPT:

News Corp has hit the slop machine since at least 2023, when it was using chatbots to churn out local news stories —  3,000 each week — attributed to the head of the data team. Nobody knew about this until a News Corp executive bragged about it at a conference. [Guardian, archive]
Since 2024, News Corp papers are full of AI-generated images — except the Herald Sun and Courier-Mail, for some reason. (follow the link for the hot links).

The pond is so over blather about "woke" and wretched half-baked AI generated pseudo-gifs.

Sure the dog botherer's in election campaign mode, sure he's duller than ditchwater, but the pond decided to give him a run. 

His one punishment? An abridging of his illustrations, an omission of all the visual slop, but trust the pond, none of them will be missed from What our political debate really needs is at least some connection to reality  Forget the sexy promises; competence in delivering essential outcomes is what counts.

It took an interminable six minutes, so the reptiles said, and because of the ban, correspondents must imagine this disruptive snap, A protestor on stage during the pre-budget address of Treasurer Jim Chalmers in Brisbane. Picture: NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Did you miss it? Can you imagine it? 

Readers must also ignore the injunction, This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there, which never makes sense to the pond. Does the lizard Oz paper edition now include hard links? That would be some technological feat.

Not to worry ... on with the electioneering ...

The call is going out from wise observers, casual pundits and political players alike that what our unofficial election campaign sorely needs is more policy.
I beg to differ. What our political debate really needs is at least some connection to reality – you know, an end to pretence. A little respect for the truth.
We have two major parties and a host of minors, for instance, that base a range of so-called policies on a pledge to reduce our nation’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. This will not happen but the charade continues.
The International Energy Agency says that with net zero by 2050, “almost half the reductions come from technologies that are currently at the demonstration or prototype phase”. Good luck.

Truth? Connection to reality? Since when have the reptiles ever handled the climate science truth? Since when have they been close reality?

Cue one of those awesomely stupid snaps, certain not to be missed, Power lines set up by wind farms near Noorat in Victoria. Picture: Dannika Bonser

On to nuking the country to save the planet, except that the planet doesn't really need saving because only "religious zealots", deep in a snake-handling fever, think it's happening...

Imagine the inanity of daily political debate over costings and policies based on the fantasy they can achieve an emissions target that current engineering cannot deliver and that remains a quarter of a century, or nine elections, into the future.
In a world where policies, promises and forecasts often do not last from one budget to the next, this is ludicrous.
Yet the team derided in polite society as the most unlikely to deliver this goal, the Coalition, is the only one prepared to enlist nuclear power, which happens to be the only proven and reliable emissions-free energy source, one that the IEA declares as indispensable in the net-zero task. See what I mean about the need for reality?
Clearly logic plays little role in our politics. Labor teases Peter Dutton over a lack of policy when the Coalition’s twin nuclear initiatives, the AUKUS defence deal and the domestic energy plan, if realised, will be the only historically significantly positive policy achievements of the post Hawke and Howard era, and perhaps the most vital since WWII.

Oh bless his cotton-picking, nuking, SMR socks (but not his heart, that went missing a long time ago).

Now does anyone miss a snap of this reptile-saturated AV distraction?

Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell believes the rate cut by the Reserve Bank “puts the focus” on Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. The Reserve Bank has cut the official cash rate for the first time in more than four years, lowering it by 25 basis points, from 4.35 per cent to 4.10 per cent. “I think this very much puts the focus on Peter Dutton now, I have to say,” Mr Clennell said. “We’re at five minutes to midnight on an election now. Where’s the policy? “They announced a nuclear policy – seven federal government-owned nuclear power plants, and then they kind of ran away from it. “They’d have to convince a hostile Senate to end the moratorium. “That looks like a pipedream.”

It was a relief for the pond to be spared, because the verbiage was more than enough ...

Meanwhile Anthony Albanese traipses around the country announcing billions of dollars here and millions there in policy announcements designed to buy votes. Labor desperately hopes the Coalition will have the courage to oppose some spending so it can launch a scare against the Coalition. This strategy is to governance what going the biff is to footy – it is reckless, damaging and only vaguely related to the real task, but it can deliver victory.
During my time in state and federal politics I was often exasperated when the call went out for frontbenchers and senior staff to present new policy ideas. Almost invariably they would come up with a long list of plans for government to spend more money providing more things for voters.
What we need are ways to improve outcomes without adding to outlays, or ideas that will maintain outcomes while saving money.
But funding new stuff is always the easy option, easy to imagine and easy to sell.
And this was on the side of politics supposedly wedded to small government. Gaia knows what the shopping lists look like inside Labor. This is why we have ended up with sports and art subsidies for our kids, free home insulation, subsidised solar panels, tax-exempt electric cars, public broadband, churn-them-through Medi­care clinics, ubiquitous school halls, and all the rest of it.
Just watch Albanese now – no matter how deep the deficits or how bleak the debt forecasts, there will be handouts.

Those AV distractions are even more tedious when they feature the dog botherer himself: Sky News host Chris Kenny says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is “all at sea” on foreign policy regarding the Middle East. Anthony Albanese has refused to weigh into Donald Trump's explosive announcement that the US would "take over" the Gaza Strip, after being peppered with questions from the press gallery. “He's always demonised Trump and he used to protest against Israel,” Mr Kenny said. “We'll all see I suppose what he has to say about all this when someone else works it out for him.”

Perhaps the dog botherer could say something on the mango Mussolini's explosive announcement that he wants to take over Ukraine's nuclear power plants but second thoughts, we wouldn't want to demonise imperialism in action.

Usually not a fluent speaker, Albanese is defensive and full of “ums” and “ers” when discussing foreign policy or the economy.
But talking about $8.5bn for Medicare, $2bn for the Whyalla steelworks, or $689m for cheaper medicines, the words and numbers roll off his tongue.
As he boasts about the spending and assumes gratitude, Albanese seems genuinely oblivious to the fact this is our money. He expects credit for throwing our tax dollars around or, worse, spending borrowed money from our future taxes and those of our children.
Labor’s energy rebates take the cake – Labor broke the promise to cut electricity prices because the billions of taxpayers’ dollars it spends on renewable energy and transmission subsidies force prices ever upwards. Yet its response is to spend more of taxpayers’ money temporarily subsidising power bills to protect voters from spiralling power prices.
A policy that spends money to push up prices, a policy promise to cut bills and a policy spending more money to assuage the damage from the first policy. Yet people say we need more policy. What many of us would like to see is competent administration of sound priorities. Sure, this demands some policy prescriptions, but their thrust would hardly be novel and would not involve bundles of new expenditure.
Labor promised secure, affordable electricity, controlled immigration and a lower cost of living.
To the naive it must have sounded wonderfully sensible and uncontroversial, but the green left, true to its brand, failed at practical delivery.
As we await the budget and official campaign, Dutton’s opposition is promising to reduce expenditure but is coy about how. The Coalition will be nervous about Labor attacks on its proposed cuts.

For this visual interruption, the reptiles co-joined a snap of a hand holding pills in a blister pack with a hand reaching for a pack of pills, with a smirking mango clown with bright Freudian red tie, and the tag Labor is increasingly operating on the assumption that the Trump administration will slap tariffs on more products.

What a relief to offer a cartoon instead explaining why that would be a jolly good thing...

Meanwhile, in the dog botherer's own topsy turvy bizarro world, how he yearns to do a DOGE down under ...

Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency creates a political pincer for Dutton. It emboldens conservatives to push for spending cuts while exposing Dutton to Trump alignments that are toxic with swinging voters.
For economic growth we desperately need a productivity agenda focusing on labour market deregulation and an assault on red and green tape. This, too, exposes the Coalition to Labor, union and activist scare campaigns.
These central economic challenges tend to be ignored in campaigns. In their place we get Labor constantly promising more money for health and education even though the increased spending does not improve outcomes.
Labor’s funding is often matched by the Coalition to avoid political attacks, while we forestall the fundamental reforms that might improve health and education performance.
The economy stumbles along with high immigration and debt-fuelled government spending, but private sector investment and growth, along with productivity, are stagnant.
With unconstrained growth in the nonproductive parts of the economy, our path is not sustainable. As manufacturing moves offshore, we need to work harder and smarter.
But do not hold your breath waiting for this debate; the can will be kicked down the road. Myriad “announceables” and so-called policies dominate campaign diaries and coverage.
Competence in delivering essential outcomes is what counts. Cheaper power, secure borders, and efficient government are universal goals. Forget the sexy promises, just do it.
When Tony Abbott was dull and forthright about “stopping the boats” the media and political elites argued it was impossible – Kevin Rudd said Abbott’s plans would start a conflict with Indonesia. Abbott got elected and delivered. (He hit some other roadblocks, of course, resulting largely from unnecessary last-minute campaign promises. The constant circus of frivolous debate encourages all manner of mistakes.)
We have seen plenty of nonsense at play this week.

Then came another AV distraction, Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is “beating the drums of war” following his foreign policy speech at the Lowy Institute.

The drums of war? He certainly admires his role model ...

And so to the last gobbet ...

After utterly failing to keep criminal non-citizens in immigration detention or deport dual citizens, the Albanese government has ridiculed Dutton’s uncontroversial acceptance that if it turns out the government does not have the power to control its own borders, it might need constitutional reform to assert that authority. Instead of outrage at Dutton, the focus ought to be on why Albanese would baulk at such a referendum to keep citizens safe. Especially when the Prime Minister just botched a constitutional change by persisting with the voice after failing to negotiate bipartisan support – poor priorities.
We learned this week that Labor’s attacks against the Opposition Leader for daring to attend a Sydney fundraiser four days ahead of Tropical Cyclone Alfred’s expected Queensland landfall occurred even while the party knew Albanese was at a fundraiser in the same city on the same day.
This, just a week after the Prime Minister muscled up and threatened deportation against an American influencer for picking up a baby wombat, when his government previously had granted tourist visas to thousands of Gazans without thorough security checks.
The twisted priorities, incompetence and political trickery has reached new levels and has no regard for reality. Albanese and his Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, continue to talk about a “green hydrogen revolution” while more than a half-dozen major hydrogen projects have collapsed, even with the promise of tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.
Talking about Russia, the Prime Minister said Australians always “stand up to bullies”. But just days earlier, when China bullied Australia through unannounced live-firing exercises, far from standing up, Albanese made excuses for the Chinese.
Still, every day or so Albanese and Labor come out with another announcement about a new way to spend a few more billion dollars. And they call them policies.
If this is what our national political debate has been reduced to, spending money we do not have on providing more things for more people at no cost, I say cut it out.
All these “policies” might be part of the problem.

Why stand up to Russia or China? Why not just embrace them? Why not emulate them? Why not drag people off to a dark, dark prison without due process?

Sheesh, it's going to be a long campaign ... but the pond reckons it did well, only three 'toons to finish off the dog bother and turn to Polonius and his prattle...

The pond continues to be delighted by the way that the reptiles present him as a dog who happens to be able to use his paws to pound out a column...

It would be tragic if it weren't so funny.

As for the tedious topic emanating from behind the arras? Not so much delight. 

Polonius has only three topics, his suffering, the way the ABC causes his suffering, and when in season, the way that writers' festivals add to his suffering ...

Just another boring writers’ festival where everyone agrees with each other, Sydney Writers Festival, like its counterparts in other cities, might include some talented writers but it is essentially a leftist stack. Expect lots of nodding heads.

Much like the the ABC, the reason Polonius gets so indignant is that they ignore him, yet he's a grand pooh-bah on Sky Noise down under.

See this tag attached to the snap Sydney Writers Festival artistic director Ann Mossop. Not one conservative is likely to challenge the left-of-centre ethos at the event. Picture: Belinda Rolland

It was left over from Not one conservative is likely to challenge the left-of-centre ethos at the ABC (And much terminally tedious more of that anon).

So the standard rant began:

The Sydney Writers’ Festival (artistic director Ann Mossop), which runs from May 19 to May 27, is shaping up to be yet another taxpayer/ratepayer-funded leftist stack. As was the Adelaide Writers Week (director Louise Adler), held during the first week of March.
As would be expected, there are some talented authors on the platform on such occasions.
However, I have examined the program with respect to Australian participants discussing broadly political matters at both the SWF and AWW and could not locate one conservative.
Sure, there are some neutral types and a few social democrats. But not one conservative likely to challenge the left-of-centre ethos that pervades such events.
Mossop told Caroline Overington, The Australian’s literary editor, that speakers at the 2025 SWF had been chosen for “their work”. Mossop added: “We’re not putting on some kind of political discussion designed to represent every single point of view.”
This is a straw-man argument. I am not aware of anyone who has suggested a discussion on every single point of view. That would result in the 2025 SWF being a “Sydney Writers Year”. What Mossop overlooks is that there is scant viewpoint diversity regarding the subjects on the program.

At this point the reptiles flung in a publicity snap, My Life as a Jew by Michael Gawenda

Safer reading than My death as a Palestinian child ...

Graudian here and here, The Conversation here, the Beeb here ...

Turns out that sort of stuff is a tad inconvenient for Polonius, what with him seemingly being broadly sympathetic to child butchery ...

Take, for example, the contentious issue of Palestine in the aftermath of Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, and the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
I can identify a dozen speakers on these panels who are Israel antagonists and only three who are broadly sympathetic to Israel, including Michael Gawenda, a former Age editor who comes from a left-wing Jewish background.
Gawenda, the author of My Life as a Jew (Scribe, 2023), was not invited by Adler to the 2024 Adelaide festival.

Polonius knows how to be boring. Just sample his range ...

The 2025 AWW ran a session titled The State of the Nation that was later broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live. David Marr was the presenter and the panel comprised Bob Carr, Rebecca Huntley and Rick Morton. All are talented polemicists and authors. But all are left-of-centre types on most issues.
No wonder the four essentially agreed with each other on almost everything. And that’s just boring.
There were similar discussions titled Australia’s Carbon Capture: Releasing Fossil Fuel’s Grip on Our Democracy” (featuring economist Ross Garnaut and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young).

Maybe they should invite Genghis Khan, more in keeping with the Polonial world view. After all, you could hardly expect Polonius to brush up on his climate science ...

And so on. No disagreement there. Plus a session on the United States: Down and Out? featuring Allan Behm, Nick Bryant, Van Jackson and Emma Shortis. Not much division there among this quartet of US critics.

Oh yes, things are going splendidly, no need to let out a Polonial cheep offering some sane-washing ...

Best keep Poloniu's true love for MAGA types a tad discreet  ...

There was a time, more than a half-century ago, when the left in Australia and other Western nations was prepared to listen to oppon­ents. The Vietnam moratorium debates held in Australia in the late 1960s were organised by students and academics who were opposed to Australia’s military commitment in South Vietnam.
But on occasion they were prepared to give a platform to those with opposing views. For example, external affairs minister Sir Paul Hasluck in the Coalition government and anti-communist activist BA Santamaria spoke at such events at Monash University in Melbourne.

Yes, the Liberals were so into opposing views they jailed anyone who didn't want to go on a trip to Asia to indulge in war mongering and colonial adventures...

Not any more. From the early 1970s until today, it is a rare event indeed when a right-of-centre politician or a conservative commentator can get a podium on a tertiary campus. Put simply, the left will not hear what it does not want to hear. This position pervades univer­sities, writers festivals and the ABC.
Writing in The Saturday Paper on February 22, former Liberal Party leader John Hewson denied that the ABC was a conservative-free zone. But he has not named one conservative presenter, producer or editor on any of the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster’s outlets.

You see? He simply couldn't help himself. The power of that short-cut in the Polonial keyboard remains strong ...

How many times has he ranted about the ABC not having one conservative presenter, producer or editor on any of the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster’s outlets.

In other cases of this kind, the pond would diagnose dementia ... but it's been going on for an eternity, judging by the reference in the snap. Could it be early onset dementia, formed way back when, Former Liberal Party leader John Hewson denied that the ABC was a conservative-free zone Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Golly, the ingredients in the birthday cake man have aged, and not being to the right of Genghis Khan, clearly means he's no conservative ... though for all the pond knows he might be leading a quiet domestic suburban life in semi-retirement, only coming out occasionally to spin those ancient Polonial wheels...

Back to the litany, though the pond has been there a squillion times before ...

I know individuals within the ABC who did not believe that Cardinal George Pell was guilty of historical child sexual abuse. But they would not say this within the organisation, either on-air or in the privacy of the office. Such was the orthodoxy that prevailed.
Yet in April 2020, in a unanimous decision, all seven judges of the High Court declared the cardinal was not guilty. But to this day the ABC refuses to discuss the case, despite the fact it is an important legal decision, presumably to protect the reputation of its many activist journalists who were involved in the media pile-on against Pell.
One of the reasons the ABC has lost much of its audience in recent years is that many of its programs are so dull because they promote an orthodoxy of thought and detest diversity of views.
Then there is the matter of tolerance. American Jessica Tarlov is a Fox News contributor and occasional presenter. She is also a left-of-centre social democrat who voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 US presidential election. Tarlov has commented that a poll in 2020 indicated that more Republicans say they would be willing to date someone with different political views than would Democrats.

It's called projection ... coming from a hive mind that promotes orthodoxy of thought and detest diversity of views.

Does Polonius really think anyone would be fooled by talk of the one sock puppet liberal given a little air time up against a horde of Trumpists, so that mug punters can be made to fall for the "fair and balanced" bullshit? 

As for not dating barking mad Trumpists, perhaps Democrats are of sounder mind and taste than GOPers.

Perhaps GOPers would rut anything that moved, perhaps because GOP incels are more desperate, what with the mating rituals of Andrew Tate and Conor McGregor not that appealing, unless you like a little miscegenation by way of mating with apes ...

Then came another cornball routine ...

The evidence suggests that contemporary conservatives are more tolerant than contemporary leftists – who like to be called “progressives”. This even applies to the media. On Fox News in the US last Sunday, Howard Kurtz’s MediaBuzz program discussed politics with Caroline Downey (a conservative contributor to National Review) and Kevin Walling (who worked on the Biden-Harris Democratic campaign).
In Australia, the ABC TV Media Watch program has never had a conservative presenter in its 35-year existence. MediaBuzz is a livelier program than Media Watch. The reason turns on the fact that Kurtz presides over debate and discussion and refrains from delivering secular sermons.
The modern-day progressive left resembles religious institutions of old. Followers of the faith are free to stay – and those who disagree are free to depart. Moreover, contrary views are not heard.

At the risk of repetition, it's called projection...you can roll your jaffas down the aisle and make as much noise as you like when sitting through a sequel.

Members of cults frequently indulge in that sort of nonsense ...especially ones deep in the folds of the Catholic Church, always ready to conduct an inquisition ...

Much like those conducting a new terror regime ...

Here's the real reason for Polonius's deep unhappiness ...

No perks, no gift bags, no swag bag, no goodies, no junkets...

Those who take part in literary festivals are welcome to accept the travel, accommodation and speakers’ fee.

Does that bring out the resentful, jealous spite or what ...

But they would be advised not to delude themselves that they are engaged in an intellectual exercise.
It is understandable why some generous private donors to such events in the past are increasingly unwilling to be associated with the left-wing stack such as the 2025 SWF replete with Israel-antagonists on its platforms.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.

If that's an example of an intellectual exercise, pass the pond a bigot pill ...

And that end note, say what? Suddenly he's an executive director? 

And there was the pond thinking he was a dog ...a media dog, a barking, whining, scratching, resentful, deeply unhappy hound from far right hell ...

And so to the Everest "Ned" climb and a warning -the reptiles clocked this at a staggering 11 minute read ... Trump can dismantle ... but he cannot build, The US President is reinvigorating conservatism but trashing it at the same time. What will be left when he finishes?

The opening snap came with the usual weird suggestion, This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

As for the gif - a bit of fog drifting over the collage - it was beyond the valley of the risible, another outing for the slop machine ...

"Ned" set about the business of trying to cope with King Donald ...(did you hear the one about the "special offer" from King Chuck, which would allegedly see the USA an associate member of the Commonwealth, and so King Chuck taking over from King George III as the real king of the USA? Or perhaps two kings sharing the throne, a talking tampon, and a bacon burger. Or something like that).

Donald Trump is the ultimate transformational leader. He has been characterised as a conservative, a populist and a libertarian, but he transcends any philosophical brand. Trump is unique, a charismatic autocrat whose political essence lies in his idiosyncratic personality.
Trump presides over a political phenomenon – the cultural right is ascendant yet divided and agitated. Trump has a dominant political personality, rather than an ideology, but his personality inspires followers and generates hatred. Trump cannot unite America because his core method is divide and rule.
His path to power involved the hijacking of the Republican Party – once seen as the embodiment of conservative values, free-market capitalism, personal liberty and US global leadership. But Trump has devoured the Republican Party along with the honoured rituals that it championed.
Trump presides over the death of the old conservatism. The Trumpian paradox is that Trump himself, elected off the back of a powerful conservative movement, is not an authentic conservative.

"Ned" always tries this both siderist ploy as a way of distancing himself from the mango Mussolini, The Trumpian paradox is that Trump himself is not an authentic conservative. Picture: AFP

But "Ned" is a kissing cousin to Faux Noise. No amount of wriggling can get him off that hook, or disassociate himself from the company he keeps ...

They keep printing all sorts of admiring guff, right down to celebrating things such as the "F-47" - narcissism c'est moi - and a devotion to TG and Canuck bashing.

"Ned" likes ot pretend he's above that fray, and he loves to quote others to fill in the column inches, and never mind the size, feel the alleged penetration ...

He has empowered the combined forces of the New Right and the national conservative movement yet in his first three months of office Trump has assailed the core institutions of the American state: the judiciary, the federal bureaucracy, the intelligence agencies, individual liberties, and the foreign policy and economic settlements of the past two generations.
Historian and economist Niall Ferguson, who cheered Trump’s win, recently wrote in The Free Press that few Trump supporters grasped they were voting not just for lower inflation and higher border security “but for a radical project to turn back the economic clock”, with their hero aiming “to reverse at least four decades of American economic history”.
Ferguson said ordinary Americans elected Trump to punish the Democrats for 9 per cent inflation at its 2022 peak and millions of illegal border crossers. While they may not necessarily believe Trump’s claim of a new “golden age” they expect things to get better. But the Trump administration says it is doing things “the hard way”, and delivering “cheap goods” is not such a priority.

Is it news that Niall is a compleat goose in a kind of cathartic FAFO phase? 

Just look at the pathetic dribbler pretending to be a don, Historian and economist Niall Ferguson. Picture: NewsWire/Monique Harmer

Was he completely up himself? Yes, he was ...

Niall Ferguson: The Resurrection of Donald J. Trump, Trump’s victory is a blow to political lawfare, critical race theory, woke campuses, legacy media, and Hollywood. It’s a win for a new generation of builders like Elon Musk. (paywall)

More woke shit.

It was pitiful and delusional, and inevitably destined to come back as a FAFO bite on the bum, but luckily that November 2024 outing is hidden by the paywall ...

It's as if he didn't have what he was signing up for. Uncle Leon a builder? 

In what alternative universe? More like wood chipper action with his mates, waiting to brief him on the very best plans for his China plants..

"Ned" next attempted his own patented brand of both siderism, which always accompanies the hand-wringing and the Chicken Little fear of falling clouds ...

It's sane-washing justification for Trump time ...

The President has now moved into negative territory on the approval/disapproval ratings.
Trump won in 2024 on, among other things, conservative votes. Yet the conundrum of his presidency is that Trump is reinvigorating conservatism but trashing it at the same time. What will be left of the conservative remnant when he finishes?
Trump’s brand of governance is unique, a blend of executive intervention, American nationalism, trade protectionism, contempt for democratic checks and balances, and retreat from US global leadership. None of his successors will replicate this model because it belongs to Trump’s personality. Have no doubt, Trump will permanently change America, but what stays and what goes cannot remotely be guessed at this stage, nor how US conservatism will emerge.
None of this is to deny the impact he will have – cutting federal spending, red and green tape, punishing the curse of identity politics, even perhaps restoring integrity to the education system and reviving a sense of pride and belief in the American dream.
There is a justification for Trump – as a necessary and powerful corrective mechanism for the arrogant over-reach of the progressive establishment in its control of public and private institutions and its attack on the foundations of liberalism. Trump is the figurehead for a cultural transformation driven by an American right that turned traditional conservatism to a radical counter-revolutionary movement. Trump did not create this movement but he has seized control of it through his charismatic appeal.
The extent of the transformation is best grasped in the comparison between Trump and Ronald Reagan, once seen as the best recent reflection of the American conservative presidency.
Reagan’s recent and best biographer, Max Boot, writes: “There were many obvious differences between Trump and Reagan, both in their policies and style. Reagan was pro-immigration, pro-free trade, pro-democracy and pro-NATO. He was also a consummate gentleman who never indulged in name-calling or acerbic putdowns. He was, moreover, a staunch believer in American democracy who would never have dreamed of instigating an insurrection to prevent a lawfully elected candidate from taking office.”

The invocation of Ronnie Raygun is pitiful, but the reptiles doubled down with a snap ... Ronald Reagan was once seen as the best recent reflection of the American conservative presidency. Picture: AFP

The pond prefers to think of him as a dirty, double dealing rat fink deserving to be taken out in The Killers ...

Sorry, back into "Ned's" version of the movie ...

Reagan made Americans feel good about themselves – and, for better or worse, he was a two-term successful governing president while shifting the country decisively to the right.
Will Trump be a successful governing president? The jury is out but the omens aren’t encouraging. Interviewed by the author at an early stage of Trump’s first presidency, John Howard, issuing a warning, said: “It’s misleading the political landscape for conservative commentators in Australia to see Donald Trump as the embodiment of modern conservatism. Trump is not my idea of a conservative. Trump is no Reagan or Thatcher and they are the two most conservative lodestars in my lived political experience.”
Both Howard and Tony Abbott have a deeply conventional view of conservatism compared with the Trump project. Abbott previously said the conservative instinct “is to repair rather than to replace, it’s to leave well enough alone, it’s to fix only what needs to be fixing, it draws inspiration from the past and wants the future to be a better version of what we know and love”.

Oh FFS, there's the onion muncher wandering off to Hungary and hanging out with barking mad far right extremists and "Ned's" trying on that routine? 

But he does stumble on one singular insight...

There are shades of Trump in this, but you need to look hard. Howard and Abbott had an orthodox interpretation of conservatism drawn heavily from Edmund Burke, who saw society as a partnership and espoused evolutionary change, backing the American Revolution but opposing the French Revolution.
But in the US this view was de-constructed pre-Trump by a new class of activists and apostles demanding a more radical conservatism. Indeed, Boot wrote: “If Reagan had been alive in 2016, he undoubtedly would have been derided by most Republicans as a RINO (Republican in Name Only) like the two Bushes, John McCain and Mitt Romney” – an accurate yet extraordinary situation.
Since Reagan there has been a mounting belief among US conservatives that they had lost their country; that even Reagan made too many compromises and look what happened! The view took hold that nearly all institutions were controlled by secular progressives hostile to notions of family, faith, nation and educational integrity.

Yes, it's all the David Brooks, and "Ned's" and NY Times columnists of the Ross Douthat kind that paved the way for King Donald with their whining and their carping and their list of snowflake grievances and agitations ... and now when they get what they wanted, they're still carping and whining ...

Trump became the instrument of restoration. People with a grievance against the system flocked to him – from the displaced industrial worker to the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, forming an astonishing alliance to smash whatever they hated. And there was plenty of that.
Trump is a conqueror able to puncture and even dismantle an established progressive order – but he manifestly cannot create a replacement order.
Even in his first three months, this is the singular insight. It’s because his presidency is about himself and his colossal ego. Trump is not a builder. He lacks the institutional and policy capacity to strengthen America’s economic base; witness his misunderstanding about how high tariffs work given they will lift prices, penalise consumers and misdirect resources.
A former president of the American Enterprise Institute and self-declared “old establishment conservative” who shifted to the radical side, Christopher DeMuth, writing in 2021, outlined what drove the conservative reinvention: “Have you noticed that almost every progressive initiative subverts the American nation, as if by design?

Have you ever noticed how every far right loon initiative subverts the American constitution, and by design?

The reptiles preferred a snap of the King ... Donald Trump’s presidency is about himself ... and his colossal ego. Picture: AFP

Is that talk of a colossal ego a sign of regret?

Perhaps for those who spent the early days in a state of delusion, doing sane-washing chores, only to have epic FAFO moments ... like the David Brooks types, always moaning about how no-one was a conservative like him, until he saw what his conservative chums gave unto the world, and so were no longer conservative like him ...

“Explicitly so in opening national borders, disabling immigration controls and transferring sovereignty to international bureaucracies. But it also works from within – elevating group identity above citizenship; fomenting racial, ethnic and religious divisions; disparaging common culture and the common man; throwing away energy independence; defaming our national history as a story of unmitigated injustice; hobbling our national future with gargantuan debts that will constrain our capacity for action.”
So, the conservatives became the radicals.
Many became activists.
Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo, a leader in the fight against critical race theory in US institutions, outlined his manifesto for counter-revolution in January 2024: “The world of 18th and 19th-century liberalism is gone and conservatives must live with the world as it is – a status quo that requires not conservation but reform, and even revolt. For 50 years establishment conservatives have been retreating from the great political tradition of the West – republican self-government, shared moral standards and the pursuit of eudaimonia, or human flourishing – in favour of half-measures and cheap substitutes.
“The chief vectors for the transmission of values – the public school, the public university and the state – are not marketplaces at all. They are government-run monopolies. Conservatives can no longer be content to serve as the caretakers of their enemies’ institutions, or as gadflies who adopt the posture of the ‘heterodox’ while signalling to their left-wing counterparts that they have no desire to disrupt the established hegemony. We must recruit, recapture and replace existing leadership. We must produce knowledge and culture at a sufficient scale and standard to shift the balance of ideological power. Conservative thought has to move out of the ghetto and into the mainstream.
“My conviction is that ends will ultimately triumph over means; men will die for truth, liberty and happiness, but will not die for efficiency, diversity and inclusion.”
But will they die for Trumpian excesses?
Offering an alternative view, New York Times columnist David Brooks, a sympathiser with Burkean conservatism, warned in 2022 in The Atlantic that Trumpian Republicanism “plunders, degrades and erodes institutions for the sake of personal aggrandisement”. Brooks said, by contrast, the profound insight of conservatism “is that it’s impossible to build a healthy society on the principle of self-interest”.
In February, Brooks spoke to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London – an organisation pledged to the revival of Western civilisational principles – saying of Trump, JD Vance and Musk: “They’re anti-left, they don’t have a positive, conservative vision for society, they just want to destroy the institutions that the left now dominates. I’m telling you as someone on the front row to what’s happening, do not hitch your wagon to that star.

But they did, they set it all up, the entire GOP did, and when the monster strode amongst them, they folded like the pack of cards in Alice ...

Just to rub it in, the reptiles featured a snap of the stolen valour clowns, US Vice President JD Vance exits the Oval Office in the opposite direction as US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Picture: AFP

Once again "Ned" took his marching orders from that prime piece of Brooksian puff pastry, pretending it wasn't conservatives that wrought what they wrought ...

“Elite narcissism causes them to eviscerate every belief system they touch. Conservatives believe in constitutional government – Donald Trump says ‘I can fix this.’ Conservatives believe in moral norms – they’re destroying moral norms. The other belief system that they are destroying is Judeo-Christian faith – based on service to the poor, to the immigrant, and service to the stranger.”
Brooks highlighted the refrain: that Trump is not a conservative and it is folly for conservatives to claim him. In the end, they will be damaged.
Further evidence emerged this week when US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump – though not by name – after the President called for the impeachment of a federal judge who had ruled against the administration deporting to El Salvador nearly 300 alleged Venezuelan gang members.
When Judge James Boasberg issued an order to temporarily block the move and the administration said the planes were already in the air, the judge verbally ordered the planes to turn around. That didn’t happen.
An angry Trump called the judge a “Radical Left Lunatic”, pointed out the judge hadn’t won the election and nor did he win all seven swing states and should be impeached.
Roberts noted that “for more than two centuries” impeachment was not “an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision”. Trump’s immigration tsar, Tom Homan, said: “We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think.”
The Wall Street Journal asked in its editorial: “Are we already arriving at a constitutional impasse when the administration thinks it can ignore court orders?” It said: “What the administration can’t do is defy a court order without being lawless itself.”
Yet there is evidence Trump wants a showdown of sorts with the judiciary given a succession of court decisions that have restrained implementation of his executive decisions.

But weren't they all cheering when he stacked the court? Why get agitated when the stacked court develops a tilt?

We've been here before with this crowd, but what they produced this time is way worse than McCarthyism.

Faux Noise kept jonesing for this, and they're still jonesing, and now "Ned" has some regrets?

The messages from much of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement is that they want the executive to defy the courts. Trump’s line of attack – that Boasberg didn’t win an election – is revealing because it implies the executive has a legitimacy the judiciary lacks, rather than the two arms being co-equal branches in a separation of power.
Trump didn’t accept Joe Biden’s democratic election by the people; now the issue is whether he will accept decisions by the judiciary. These, obviously, are deep violations of conservative principles.
At the same time Trump and Musk in their campaign through the Department of Government Efficiency to dismantle the “deep state” and generate huge savings are guaranteed to provoke an electoral revolt, let alone make savings on the basis of efficiency.
In The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan, summarised the epic lack of judgment on display. Noonan said: “Everyone knows DOGE will make mistakes, but that isn’t the point. You have to be a fool to think there won’t be dreadful mistakes with broad repercussions. To take on seemingly all parts of government at the same time is to unsettle and confuse the entire government at the same moment. That is dangerous. It was a mistake to announce going in that they’d find $2 trillion in savings.”
They can’t – or, if they do to keep face and honour their target, the issue will finish on the streets and Trump can kiss goodbye to ratings.

That's all he's going to sacrifice? Ratings and perhaps the odd limb?

"Ned" maintained his cluelessness ...

Governments around the world – led by Canada but also including Australia – are left with no option but to criticise or attack Trump’s tariff policy. He is bent upon penalising nations – whether friends or potential foes – as he acts on the conviction that America has been ripped off for decades by virtually everybody else. The steel and aluminium decisions have little direct impact on Australia. The issue is: what next? Might Trump damage our beef and pharmaceutical trade? Will he listen to US pharmaceutical company hostility to our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme? Will Trump listen to Musk’s demands and declare against Australia’s laws to rein in Big Tech through our ban on the use of social media by children under 16 and our proposed News Media Bargaining Incentive scheme to force digital companies to pay for the news they use?

What next?

This week, Jim Chalmers went hard against Trump’s tariff policies. The Treasurer said the decision not to exempt Australia was “disappointing, unnecessary, senseless and wrong”. Australia deserved better “as a long-term partner and ally”. Chalmers criticised Trump’s global policies – not by name – saying the rules underpinning “global economic engagement for more than 40 years are being rewritten”.
Australia’s attitude towards Trump – both the political response and public opinion – will move to resentment and anger if Australia faces more retaliation. Understand what is happening: Trump’s obsessive and flawed view of tariffs is damaging global trade, won’t deliver the gains he predicts for America and, on the way through, is punishing countries such as Australia.
Why would people in Australia support him?

Put it another way. 

Why does Faux Noise continue to support him? Why do the Faux Noise owners persist in supporting him? 

Short answer: Murdochian greed, money, power, and never mind fucking the country or the planet ...

"Ned" never manages to ask the right questions ...and so conveniently is devoid of answers, or even suggestions ... 

He prefers to dress up his idle talk with lines like This is what makes Trump a complex historical figure.

That sort of thing immediately transports the pond back to the 1930s and lines like This is what makes Adolf a complex historical figure.

The notion of tyrants, autocrats and dictators isn't that complex. They've featured in every period of history and in every country the pond has studied, and after six years doing academic history, the pond encountered more than a few.

"Ned" just wants to gild the lily in his usual pompous, portentous way ...

How the Trumpian paradox plays out defies prediction. The movement that helped to put Trump into the White House was an authentic counter-revolution with deep roots in American culture. This is what makes Trump a complex historical figure. He is ignorant of history yet he sees himself as leading a historical revolution.
It is a revolution where Trump has scant interest in the limits to his power – executive power – within America’s constitutional democracy. It is a revolution that defies the basic principles of conservatism although it is given legitimacy by much of the conservative movement. US conservatives face tough political and moral choices ahead – whether to back a leader who has empowered them but thrashes the essence of conservatism.

... with his idle blather and meaningless hand-wringing and cloud fear brought to you by the Emeritus Chairman and his minions ...and those of his minions, who, like "Ned", always manage to look the other way, as Faux Noise didn't exist and certainly was beneath mention.

Gutless and gormless they are. There's a canker at the core, a worm in the rose, but "Ned" never notices it, never mentions it ...a fool pretending he's a one-eyed king in the Faux Noise valley of the blind ...

Meanwhile, it doesn't pay for ordinary mug punters to try to swim against that tide ...