DEPOSED Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has portrayed himself as Trump’s intellectual superior – but in reality he acted like a giddy schoolgirl around the US President.
The former Liberal Party leader used his political memoirs to chest thump: “I’d learned with bullies that sucking up is precisely the wrong way to go”.
But sucking up to Trump is precisely what Turnbull did, big time. And while there’s nothing wrong with a middle power fawning all over its super power ally, to pretend it didn’t happen is being virtuously dishonest.
SANTA CLAUS
Just consider the diplomatic gifts Turnbull received from the US President – and then kept. Trump had become a bit of a Santa Claus figure for the former PM.
While Turnbull slung the majority of his prime ministerial gifts into the national basement, he personally retained every single one of Trumps. Often paying big bucks from his own pocket to do so.
Personal gifts from China’s President Xi Jinping, Indonesia’s President Joko Wododo, the King and Queen of Holland and the nations of Cuba and Vietnam were quickly “surrendered” to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
SUCKING
But from the US President, the Turnbull household kept the bowls, the jewellery and the, er…, the telescope. To do so, the Commonwealth Collector of Public Monies was paid more than $2000, being the difference between the allowable donation limit and the value of the gifts.
Yet in his memoirs, the former PM says of Trump: “He was typical of a few billionaires I know … the one thing I’d learned with bullies is that sucking up is precisely the wrong way to go”.
Turnbull could never write the truth about his Trump crush. Doing so would be counter to the principles of Leftist thinking.
If he was to remain ingratiated with his Trump-bashing media luvvies he’d have no choice but to lie.PC
Malcolm has an emotional void in his life that dates back to when he was abandoned by his mother as a young boy. He has been trying to fill that void ever since with narcissism and with the approval of others. Unfortunately for Malcolm, neither self-love nor the love of friends can make up for what he has lost, and so his loneliness has remained and his bitterness has grown. His anger at those who fail to fawn over him (which, being hyper-sensitive, he perceives as rejection) is actually the overflow of the anger he feels towards his mother. It is an anger that he has long internalised and suppressed, being unwilling to admit it to himself.
Once one understands that Malcolm is an emotional house of cards, it is easy to make sense of his rage at having been so unceremoniously dumped as Prime Minister – to him, it was more than an affront, it was a vicious attack on the very core of his being. Therefore his anger is implacable, and the stream of vitriol that gushes forth from him is never-ending.
He’s a very sad individual.
I’ve always thought Malcolm was like the other Malcolm, Fraser. Both had distant relationships with their mothers in their teenage years – Fraser was sent to boarding school. Both wanted the premiership at any price – and had little idea what to do with it once they’d got it.
Rudd and Turnbull make good dorm partners, their both giddy school girls consumed by their self importance and egotism.