Joe Hildebrand: Time Turnbull and Dutton got on board Team Australia
Malcolm Turnbull, in sharing his outrage goulash about Donald Trump, is truly guilty of geopolitical virtue signalling, writes Joe Hildebrand.
Opinion
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Did you know that Donald Trump can be chaotic and erratic?
Neither did I, so I was enormously grateful to Malcolm Turnbull for revealing this vital piece of insight to the world this week.
Indeed, I can only hope that all the world leaders watching had a pen and paper handy lest his kernels of wisdom be lost in the mists of time.
Because what else could possibly be the point of a former PM with no executive or advisory authority offering a free character assessment of the US President right when Australia was locked in desperate trade negotiations with our much larger and angrier ally?
Perhaps Turnbull thought Trump would take it all with his trademark equanimity – but that would be a strange assumption for someone you’ve just diagnosed as chaotic and erratic.
Or perhaps he thought that Trump would be one of the world leaders watching and immediately realise the folly of his ways?
One is reminded of another televised moment almost exactly 10 years ago, when Turnbull used an appearance on the ABC’s Q&A to directly address Indonesian President Joko Widodo and urge him to spare the Bali Nine.
He wasn’t prime minister then either, and strangely enough both interventions were equally unsuccessful.
Ah, Malcolm, where would we be without him? Oh, that’s right, we know. Indeed, the real problem is that we are not without him enough.
As Miranda Devine once observed, we have too many ex-PMs with too much time on their hands, and their major preoccupation is usually derailing the current one.
For blue-blood conservatives this latest foray presents a particularly cruel dilemma because Malcolm Turnbull is screwing up Anthony Albanese. It will take an abacus and a cut lunch to figure out who they despise more.
But Turnbull’s folly – which joins a surprisingly long conga-line of follies for a chap who considers himself so wise – is not really that it ruined Australia’s chances of avoiding hundreds of millions in US tariffs.
It is that it’s the epitome of a political and cultural disease that has become endemic in public life.
And that is subjugating the public good – disregarding or degrading what is actually best for the people – for the sake of a vainglorious declaration of one’s own moral purity. In other words, what Malcolm Turnbull is truly guilty of is geopolitical virtue signalling.
The term “virtue signalling” itself is a chronically cliched trope that emerged from the bowels of social media, and one I am normally loath to use.
But cliches are cliches for a reason. And such shamelessly narcissistic self-crafting of an activist or politician’s image has now jumped the tracks from the howling outrage of Twitter to the world stage.
This pretentious clamour for ideological superiority is a huge part of why Trump got elected in the first place (and the second).
But those who mindlessly spew out all this pointless tosh still don’t seem to realise this.
Or, perhaps more to the point, they don’t actually care.
Because the point of it all is not to get better outcomes – such as, say, Trump not getting elected, or Australia not being slammed by US tariffs – but to tell the world how much you, the sanctified and sanctimonious bearer of righteousness, are opposed to Trump. Or the US. Or capitalism. Or Israel. Or whatever.
Only two ingredients are needed for this outrage goulash. One is that whoever or whatever you are opposed to continues to hold power, and the other is that you present no practical solutions.
Because if, heaven forbid, the situation were to improve, you would have less to be outraged about and thus less opportunity to prove how wise and virtuous you are.
So compare the pair: Malcolm Turnbull is slagging off Trump and praising the studied consistency of (*checks notes*) Chinese President Xi Jinping. Anthony Albanese, the (*checks notes*) Prime Minister, is offering the US co-operation on critical minerals to save Australia from tariffs designed to harm our manufacturers, miners and farmers.
One is trying to do damage and the other is trying to do a deal.
Who would you put your money on? Who do you think is really on Australia’s side?
And, while we’re at it, why is Peter Dutton undermining the Australian government’s efforts instead of supporting them?
I like and respect Dutton enormously but despite his claims to be a patriot, he is stoking the very division that the US and China are seeking to exploit, just as the Liberals are playing a double game with the Jewish community and The Muslim Vote movement, publicly supporting one while privately supporting the other.
Our national interest is more important than personal vanity or political trickery. It’s time Turnbull and Dutton got on board Team Australia.
The Real Story with Joe Hildebrand – from your usual podcast source
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