Dr Liz Gordon – Crossing lines

The media is alive this week with the fall-out from Donald Trump’s visit to Europe. The snubs, the diplomatic faux-pas, the treatment of Theresa May, and NATO, and everyone (except Vlad-the-Lad). So much news to report, so many issues.  Oh yes, and then the Great Reversal, where Trump said he said ‘would’ but meant ‘wouldn’t’. His performance at that press conference was odd; while he lies all the time, this time you could hear the lie in his voice.

All of this is conveyed to us in a breathless and exasperated voice by the media. Am I the only person who found the whole thing quite entertaining? I must admit I have had a lot of fun listening to all the shenanigans this week.  When Trump stirs things up, it reveals deeper truths about him but also about the institutions he is mocking.

Let’s start with Theresa May and the infamous Sun interview. Theatrically, I would put this as an Oscar Wilde moment – a comedy of manners, or rather mannerisms.  Trump told the Sun that Boris Johnson would make a great Prime Minister and criticised Theresa May on Brexit. Next morning, he accused the Sun of ‘fake news’, then apologised to Theresa May (who in turn blamed it on the media – fake news).  The fact that he was recorded saying every word was completely ignored (but I am sure not forgotten) by both parties.

It is not surprising that the media started reaching for their copies of George Orwell’s 1984 (though actually I have always preferred Animal Farm as a story of when truth becomes lies and vice versa). Doublethink is among us. Anyway, it is no stretch to see the dialogue written into a Wilde play and enacted in the chintz drawing room of a fine house (Chequers, perhaps?).

And there is the mystery of why he grabbed May’s hand when descending a few steps to the press conference.  Were his aging knees playing up? Did he think her aging knees were playing up? Or was this a show of comity for the press?  Perhaps all of the above?

If the May affair was a Wilde-ish comedy of errors, the session with the Queen comes straight out of Shakespeare. Trump behaved throughout as if the whole production – Windsor castle, an aging monarch, the furry hats of the Beefeaters, tea and the private audience had all been created just for him. He was not the guest, but the owner of the event.  He showed this in particular by his various breaches of protocol.

Perhaps the most shocking was when he stood poised to inspect the furry brigade and forced the Queen to walk around him, which is not in the meet-the-Queen rulebook.  The thing that was funny was that he did not even notice. I’m not a monarchist but you have to give the old girl marks for aplomb. She shuffled calmly around the Trump statue and indicated to him where he should go.  The Queen might have said:

Avaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the rack:
I swear ’tis better to be much abused
Than but to know’t a little.

Or perhaps she might have had Trump clapped up in the Tower (I wonder whether anyone would have tried to rescue him).  Rudolf Hess was the last state prisoner to be held in the Tower, in 1941, but the infamous Kray twins were held there for a few days in the 1950s. The impoundment of Donald would have been a great tourist attraction for London this summer, though.

But this is all fantasy on my part – she did neither of these things.  On the British side, it was all courtesy and good manners no matter what Trump did. While I abhor the lack of challenge to his behaviour, I must admit the diplomatic niceties were revealed as a useful buffer to insulate the nation-state from his vindictive approach.  With the establishment keeping calm and carrying on, Trump’s rants were foregrounded and highlighted, and contrasted with the civilised veneer of the UK, and found wanting.

And yet there was plenty in all of this to warm Trump’s supporters. A refusal to bow to conventions is seen by these people as a strength, not a weakness.  Thus far, then, points to Trump’s domestic agenda, havoc in the UK and a big tick for diplomatic processes. Then came Helsinki.

The Putin affair was pure farce.  As such, it did not disappoint. Putin had the upper hand all the way through.  He kept Trump waiting for an hour, spoke first (and at length) and bent Trump completely to his will.  Putin the Puppeteer had Trump saying that the Russians were right and his own security services were wrong about election interference.

This, of course, was a bridge too far. Thus, Trump later had to front up and said that he meant the opposite of what he said – a double negative, as he noted.  Not, of course, until he judged that even his closest supporters had turned against him. Now the media are asking more seriously whether Vlad has got some dirt on Donald. This is all grist for my funny bone, too.

Should I apologise for my enjoyment of the spectacle of the DT Circus as it wended its way through a Europe so unprepared for such an onslaught? My sister (in London) says that it’s OK for me, I haven’t had Trump’s enormous helicopter cast a shadow over my home. But you got to see the Trump baby, I replied.

Dr Liz Gordon began her working life as a university lecturer at Massey and the Canterbury universities. She spent six years as an Alliance MP, before starting her own research company, Pukeko Research.  Her work is in the fields of justice, law, education and sociology (poverty and inequality). She is the president of Pillars, a charity that works for the children of prisoners, a prison volunteer, and is on the board of several other organisations. Her mission is to see New Zealand freed from the shackles of neo-liberalism before she dies (hopefully well before!).