Outrageous Enough?

Jane & Chris being outrageous ski touring on the Franz Josef Glacier

Trump has taken politics into a whole new era in which politicians compete to say the most outrageous statements and no one holds them to account. Have they been trained by social media where there’s plenty of evidence anger wins the most clicks?  It’s interesting, while social media has been blamed for encouraging echo chambers, it remains that content people disagree with drives the most interactions.

Trump outdid even himself this week by suggesting it would be okay if Iran took out Los Angeles or San Diego. He said, “They can take out a city. Let them take it, let it, let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s, this is a very small price to pay and its gonna be over very soon. It’s essentially almost over with.” 

Let’s put aside the lack of evidence that Iran could strike a western US city with a nuclear ballistic missile. And this war was supposed to be a few weeks and now is 8 months long with no end in sight (I have a song about that… This War Will End on Monday). And that Trump says Iran is powerless (“We’re kicking Iran’s arse.”) while simultaneously claiming they might bomb the USA. Forgetting those important things, this was a US president saying it’s okay if a foreign power obliterates two major cities in America!

Presumably the goal of Trump’s speech was to increase his supporters by proclaiming he is the only person who can protect the population against nuclear attack. He must be supported and trusted to annihilate America’s enemies, so they don’t take out the country, only a city or two.

So how much pushback did Trump get for such an outrageous statement? California governor Gavin Newsom denounced Trump as ‘deranged and dangerous’ while the mayors of Los Angeles and San Diego objected vociferously to putting their cities in harm’s way. However, Trump’s rhetoric got cheers from attendees in Nebraska State Fairgrounds in Grand Island where the statement was made. And, in the end, what can anyone do about what Trump says? No one has legislative or any other sort of power to curb the President’s tongue. Neither when he suggests annihilating US cities nor when he tells a journalist “Quiet, piggy.”  when he doesn’t like the question.

To me, what is worst about Trump’s verbal behaviour is how it’s infecting other countries and people, including New Zealand. Shane Jones and Winston Peters appear to be Trump-style devotees. I’m thinking of statements like the ‘butter chicken tsunami’ Jones says is coming to New Zealand, and ‘go back to your own country’ (Winston referring to a Green MP born in China who is a New Zealand citizen) in Parliament. It’s hard to be definitive about whether MP’s behaviour has really got worse or if I’ve forgotten previous past behaviour, but it certainly feels like our MPs are prepared to make more outrageous statements than in the past and nothing happens when they do.

In fact, this issue was an interesting aspect of the NZ leader’s debate this week. When asked how they would deal with unruly MPs, Chris Hipkins said he would sack them and Chris Luxon said he would ‘call them out’. I’m sure that has Winston and Shane very worried, the possibility of being ‘called out’…and it’s not like Chris Luxon has even managed the puny action of calling an MP out. 

Is this where we are at in politics? Coalition leaders ignoring ranting and raving and insult throwing by MPs because the leader can’t think what else to do other than slap the misbehaving MP on the hand with a wet bus ticket? Except no one gets bus tickets any more because you can tag on and off the bus with your credit card? Progress, hey?