Trump has all the characteristics of a psychopath. Charismatic yes, but, without any ability to empathize or be embarrassed when lying. Let’s face it he even unashamedly sexualizes his own daughter in public. On the day of 9/11, while witnessing a Twin Tower collapse, he was being interviewed by phone his comment on seeing what was happening from his window was “I once had the second tallest building in New York.” Now that’s the empathy we see in Dutton.
Boomgate Dutton after attending a Pacific Region Climate Change conference and hearing the fear of ever-rising tides experienced in Kiribati turned that nation’s concern into a joke. A joke to which he and Tony Abbott, our PM, jollied themselves on live TV. Dutton’s only strategy is to go full hog Trumpian and classic Abbott Nope Nope Nope politics. Truth, relevance even offensiveness become secondary to capturing the media’s attention. The public isn’t there to be served they’re there to be manipulated a classic psychopath’s trait but Dutton does it deadpan and without the charisma.
It is important to be clear-eyed about what is happening in our politics. Escalation by escalation, embellishment by embellishment, the Liberal leader is inhabiting the zone of the political fabulist. Like Trump, sans charisma, Dutton is the dancing bear of the engagement economy, dishing up provocations intended to capture the attention of readers and viewers.
This opposition leader makes things up regularly, sometimes several times a day, with growing confidence. He’s fully intent on shaping his own reality, and why wouldn’t he be? Dutton’s accusations and inventions are amplified much more often than they are factchecked, parsed or decoded, because there is so much bollocking and barracking in the public square, people can’t see the bullshit. That’s the point. That’s the strategy.
olddogthoughts 