The view from isolation: Amid relentless ill tidings, at least the faithless fairy wrens make sense

All the leaves on the vines shading the verandah blew away during the week, marking with precision the beginning of winter.

Pale afternoon sunshine was finally permitted to shine through, warming the house and exposing the antics of superb fairy wrens – said to be the world’s least-faithful birds – flirting their cheery way around the lawn.

US President Donald Trump walks away following the group photograph at the G7 Summit in Alberta.Credit: AP

The radio and the laptop on my desk brought a stream of news from across the nation and the world, not much of it good.

There is something to be said for a spot of self-isolation.

Afflicted with a ghastly early-winter catarrh accompanied by a cough that could bring down the Walls of Jericho, I locked myself away lest I spread the plague to family, friends and workmates.

Alone in my little house by the sea, the days and long nights stretched across a fortnight.

There was a luxury to it, if you ignored the malady. And, of course, the fact that I’ve never been much of a cook. Amazing how many meals you can get from a roast chook.

Apart from the pleasure of sitting down to the day’s work while wearing a dressing gown and Ugg boots guilt-free, it encouraged a bit of free-form musing on the world’s ailments.

Out there, way beyond the newly naked verandah, what we had believed had been a relatively stable Western order since the end of the Cold War was trembling, a self-infatuated blowhard president trying to reduce his nation to America First isolation.

The United States, having given itself over to the absurdly erratic Donald Trump and his cabinet of lickspittles, was proving it could no longer be counted on for almost any major decision that lasted more than a blink.

Tariffs in Trump’s hands had become a global pea-and-thimble trick. His promise to bring international peace was proving not worth an Israeli shekel, a Gazan child’s life, a Ukrainian hryvnia, a Russian rouble or now, an Iranian rial.

His latest effort, to demand via text on his Truth Social the “unconditional surrender” of Iran, came barely a nanosecond after indicating he wanted to stay out of the Israel-Iran mess. Shortly thereafter, at time of writing, he was flirting with “maybe I will, maybe I won’t” in relation to approving a US strike. Could someone remove the red button from his reach, please?

Oh, and who might have imagined, before it came to pass, a president deploying 4000 National Guard troops and 700 US Marines to quell what were relatively low-level protests by civilians against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brutes?

Why, it was only a few months ago Trump himself had pardoned all those who had been indicted or found guilty of attacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Unsurprisingly, polling by the Australian foreign affairs think tank the Lowy Institute revealed this week that almost two-thirds of Australians now hold little to no trust in the United States to act responsibly in world affairs.

The only surprise is that 36 per cent of Australians still hold some form of trust in the Trump outfit.

Watching the fairy wrens bobbing around the lawn, I recalled my first trip overseas, a study tour to the US in the 1970s. I stayed with a series of hosts who proved unfailingly hospitable and generous.

A couple of my American hosts tried to persuade me that the disgraced ex-president Richard Nixon wasn’t really a bad person, and was the victim of a witch hunt.

We cordially agreed to disagree, and I never once felt that expressing a view could get me into any sort of strife. Free speech seemed genuinely treasured, and the perspectives of those from across the oceans seemed welcome.

It was, I reflected, so very long ago.

US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth. Credit: AP

What had happened to those mild Americans of half a century ago?

Muttering something unkind about Trump these days could get you deported or worse, your university could lose its funding or your law firm could be locked out of government contracts.

While I pondered the menace in these developments, Trump’s defence secretary, the greasy-haired ex-Fox News host Pete Hegseth – who would barely appear out of place in the sales office of a backstreet used-car yard – was hectoring Australia over its defence expenditure.

We may, of course, need to seriously review our defence capabilities, and it’s nothing new for the US to press us on the military’s share of GDP. Back in 2013, Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, called Australia’s defence spending inadequate and accused Australia of wanting a free ride on the US.

Armitage, however, was a serious man of vast experience. Is there any pressing reason we should listen to a fellow like Hegseth, who is so lacking in smarts that he was caught out sharing on a leaky chat group the details of a US strike on Yemen?

Why, this defence secretary couldn’t organise America’s immense military machine to turn on a stupendously expensive birthday parade for Trump that was much more than a sad-sack march-past.

As for Australia’s spending, did Hegseth even send a receipt for our $500 million down payment this year on the $3 billion Australia has promised to prop up the US’ submarine industry?

Has an acronym ever sounded quite as ugly as AUKUS?

Fickle by nature: The superb fairy wren.Credit: Andrew Silcocks

Back home, what was supposed to be Australia’s federal opposition – having been eviscerated at the recent election after its brains trust thought it was smart to assume a MAGA-lite approach – was meaninglessly splitting itself asunder before hurrying back to a shaky coupling of convenience. Were they trying to emulate Elon Musk and Trump’s break-up?

Even closer, what is supposed to be the Victorian Liberal Party was tearing itself to shreds. Again.

The forces for and against offering bankruptcy relief to former leader John Pesutto, spurred by factional hatreds old and new, were still furiously facing off at the time of writing.

Call me old-fashioned, but it would seem desirable to have oppositions, both federal and state, committed to spending their time holding governments to account.

The fickle doings of faithless superb fairy wrens seemed to make more sense than just about all current affairs this season. Prettier, too.

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