David Penberthy: Watching Trump this week has been pitiable

TRUMP’S ignorant refusal to fully denounce Nazis this week exposes him, again, for the mentally ill-equipped dingbat that he is, writes David Penberthy.

NAZIS: good or bad?

It’s not a difficult question. But it’s one that has stumped the leader of the Free World, the nation whose ultimate intervention in World War II was pivotal in crushing Nazism, as he ruminates to the goodness, badness or otherwise of a bunch of psychotic white supremacists, proudly wearing swastikas and doing Hitler salutes, who resolved that the best way to deal with a bunch of peaceful protesters was to mow them down with a car.

For many on the progressive side of politics, the two-term rule of George W. Bush was regarded as a period of stupidity and embarrassment in the White House. With the benefit of hindsight, President Bush now stands as an affable intellectual.

Trump is both seriously ignorant and highly unlikeable, and has confirmed as much this week with his shocking dissembling over what should be described pure and simple as an act of domestic terror, an act of murder.

It has been pitiable observing this casino owner and reality TV host trying to kickstart the few cogs he has in his brain as he attempts to address the straightforward question as to the wrongness of Nazism. Most upper-primary school students can answer that one in a jiffy.

Trump has had three tries now. His answers are only getting worse. The first time he declared there were “many sides” to the chaos in Charlottesville where 32-year-old Heather Heyer was deliberately run over by a car driven by white nationalist James Alex Fields.

Spot the “fine person”. Neo Nazis and white supremacists chant as they walk through the streets of Charlottesville. (Pic: Samuel Corum/Getty)

On his second try, at the behest of his largely aghast Republican Party, Trump got it 100 per cent right with an unadorned denunciation of Nazism and white supremacy.

But as the dog returns to its own vomit, on his third attempt, at a barely coherent press conference, Trump reverted to position one and went even further, saying again that the whole Charlottesville thing was kinda complicated, with “some very fine people on both sides”.

There is a hairy-chested view among the more vocal conservative commentators that all this is simply a case of Trump being a bold iconoclast, sticking it to the biased liberal media and all those nancy-boy PC types in refusing to tow an orthodox line.

It’s rubbish, and it’s dangerous rubbish.

What Trump is doing is broadening the parameters of what constitutes acceptable political discourse and conduct, inviting in the very people his own nation fought with great and noble sacrifice.

He does this because he has no sense of history and no concept of implication. He is mentally ill-equipped to think back or beyond a 140-character barrage on Twitter, or a deft one-liner at some journo he can’t stand from CNN or the New York Times.

The abject nature of Trump’s conduct is in stark contrast to that of a truly great conservative leader, our own John Howard, when confronted with a similar challenge.

In the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, when Howard announced the national guns amnesty and a ban on assault weapons, our prime minister knowingly went to war with the very people Trump now courts and excuses.

White nationalist James Alex Fields drives through a crowd of protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others. (Pic: Ryan M. Kelly/AP)

John Howard was targeted (and to this day is condemned) by every right-wing fringe group in our country, for his so-called disarmament of the people.

Howard was implacable in that goal, ably helped by the likes of former Nationals Senator Ron Boswell, who at great electoral cost to his own party chronicled and exposed the anti-semitic, racist, conspiratorial and apocalyptic agendas of those on Australia’s extreme right.

Howard and the Coalition flat out refused to cut these people any slack, to give them a seat at the table, knowing that the mainstream would baulk at any concession, particularly on an issue that had such strong support from the peace-loving majority in middle Australia.

It is easy to understand the initial appeal of Trump against the entitled and abrasive Hillary Clinton, and in the wake of so many double-talking machine politicians who appeared to be simply in it for themselves.

All that has been swept away this week as he exposed himself as irretrievably bereft of taste, sense or judgment, by giving cover to a group of psychos whom normal people abhor.

Australia has in my view rightly maintained an especially close relationship with the US, one forged in battle, formalised through the ANZUS treaty.

We saw the implications of that this week when our Prime Minister said that if the North Koreans launched an attack on Guam, by default it would follow that Australia too would be at war, side-by-side with the United States.

I know the argument goes that institutions are always bigger than individuals, but the aberrant nature of Trump’s presidency is so pronounced that it risks wrecking the institution too.

I am less than thrilled about Australia blindly waltzing down the aisle with a man who can’t instinctively denounce Nazism when he sees it.

Paul Keating’s attempt to start a debate about whether our automatic allegiance to the US should be cooled, with a greater focus on regional ties, especially with China, is in my view bolstered by having such a card-carrying dingbat ruling the roost in Washington.

I know the Chinese are no great shakes when it comes to human rights, but as far as I can gather, their president doesn’t tweet like a lunatic, and he probably knows Nazis when he sees them too.