Ali Aydintasbas, a journalist based in Istanbul, writing for Politico.eu on Monday commented that almost every reference to Donald Trump is made with “a wink and a smirk”, and how the smug condescension of media and the elites is whipping his supporters into an unholy frenzy. So naturally I wonder, at the end of this interminable circus, what are the chances middle-American will wake up with Eddie Murphy’s morning-after-the-election face?
You might be surprised to remember that the USA is only one of 196 countries in the world. Shit is happening elsewhere, too. To the rest of us, Trump is just another fat Yankee in a Hawaiian shirt shouting ‘Garçon!’ at the waitress, while the rest of us diners register our displeasure by a slight pause in the upward swing of a soup spoon, or a curl of the lip. We can wink and smirk because we won’t pay the price if good sense somehow fails. We are safe from ‘the Trump Effect’, aren’t we, tucked away in our corner of the Indian Ocean. We’re safe, right?
Well, let’s see. Clockwise from the geographical west, we have a Malaysian Prime Minister whose recent explanation for how US$1,050,795,451 magically appeared in his bank account was as deftly managed as his handling of the MH370 incident, now thinks he can distract our attention from his shenanigans by complaining that he hasn’t been given enough credit for lowering the local price of water spinach, and by posing with Mark Zuckerberg “at Twitter HQ”.
Over the border in Indonesia we have a mayor telling pregnant women to breastfeed because instant noodles will make their children gay. That’s right, instant noodles. This is echoed at the highest levels of government, with the Defence Minister issuing a warning against childhood consumption of ramen, because the number of LGBT infiltrating Indonesian society is at a dangerous level, especially because ‘the foe’ look just like regular folk! Furthermore, these noodle-scoffing transgendered enemies of the state should be denied access to higher education, lest they turn their mighty noodle brains against the regime!
Across the shallow sea in the Philippines, former mayor and current presidential frontrunner told the media he was disappointed because he didn’t get to rape an Australian missionary himself before she was raped and murdered by inmates during a prison riot; and in a canny display of fiscal moderation, the red-hot favourite and media-darling has candidly told media it’s okay for him to keep a couple of sluts on the side, so long as they’re cheap and he treats them bad.
In Papua New Guinea, the Supreme Court has just ruled that the Manus Island Detention Centre is unlawful, thereby throwing the Australian Government’s entire asylum seeker ‘policy’ into utter chaos; but of course this had nothing to do with our recent exposure of their Prime Minister’s involvement in a scam to rort hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars through a dodgy law firm, oh no, totally unrelated. So, um, what are we going to do with all those detainees now? anybody got any ideas … ?
After that, it’s nothing but sharks and box-jellies until New Zealand, where tensions are riding high because of the ‘Teapot Tapes’ scandal, where the incumbent Prime Minster while having coffee with a mate was illegally recorded and is alleged to be heard saying that support for a rival party was (and I quote) ‘dying off’ — yes, pick yourself up off the fuc*ing floor, America! This shit’s real! Not only that, he was once a guest at a radio station where the host ‘dropped a bar of soap’ and asked him to pick it up! Lord Jesus help us all!
So you see, America, it’s not just you. All over the world, people have issues with their elected officials. It’s normal to hate them. If anybody in Australia, for instance, was surprised that Malcolm Turnbull actually doesn’t care about anybody with a nett worth of less than AU$50M, then they need to self-administer an uppercut. Same goes for The Donald. He’s popular because he can say anything, and promise everything, and mean every word of it, or not one word at all. He could be doing this for shits and giggles or a Billionaire’s Club dare. One thing’s for sure, it wouldn’t be boring.