Turnbull's tumbril and the wobbly-wheeled right wing bandwagon
Watching the current crop of federal Liberal Party MPs setting fire to their own hair is an entertaining spectacle. This is the closing act of a circus that rolled into town in 2013 with a Snidely Whiplash in red sluggos as ringmaster and with a doctrine that butchered Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time and we reckon we can fool most people most of the time."
They didn't think we'd notice their sleights of hand or care about their pea and thimble politicking. But they were fooling themselves more than they were fooling the audience; the boos got louder, the rotten tomatoes more frequent. This wasn't mediocrity, it was a lip-sticked pig that no longer duped even the gormless dullards, the complacent or the credulous.
In panic and desperation the Libs jettisoned the public's objet d'ridicule - their idiot-in-chief and the tarnished hero of the RWNJs, the ridiculous, flag-festooned feral friar Tony Abbott.
His usurper, packaged for public consumption as an erudite, can-do sophisticate paid the deposit on his accession to the throne - one pair of testicles. Kept securely in a gladstone bag by the colander-hatted crazies, Malcolm Trembles' balls were shown to him as a reminder whenever it was thought he was straying from the far-right agenda.
Regardless of the delusions of the Lib's right wing nutters and despite the denial of the regressive-left fringes of the citizenry (with their strident censure of all things Western or, god forbid, white and male) Australia is a progressive country with an inherent social conscience. We overwhelmingly endorsed marriage equality, the majority acknowledges the reality of anthropomorphic climate change and the need for clean energy. We support the enfranchisement of indigenous Australians and accept multiculturalism. We are suspicious of autocrats. We defend government participation in education and health care. We are overwhelmingly secular and centrist with a tilt toward the progressive end of the political spectrum.
As a consequence this current wretched regime became as welcome as a Polly Waffle in a swimming pool. What is this coagulation that misrepresents itself as our government to do? What is its response to its laggard status through years of poor performance in opinion polls? Self immolation was the solution of these geniuses; a move even further to the right was their ambition.
Riven by animosities the coprolites plotted the destruction of Trembles and his 2IC Jewels Bishop, the two most palatable of their limited options. This was no longer about restoring half-decent governance nor winning the next election; this was naked revenge, ego and self interest.
Lobbied by corporate hucksters, grifters and bag snatchers, infiltrated by the dark forces of a far-right think tank, beholden to mining and media magnates and rife with monarchists and religious zealots the Liberal Party and their agrarian partners in grime, the Nationals, live in a bubble. The rabid right wing cannot hear our heckling over the megaphones of the shock jocks and Murdoch leg humpers. They are tin eared delusionals who believe that anyone not subscribing to their Randesque ideology is a Lefty adversary to be defeated at all costs.
This cabal plotted to install a mullet-eyed autocrat as PM, a psychopath who takes pleasure in tormenting refugees, who built for himself an Oberkommando of dark uniformed goons and door breakers and whose public popularity was in the low single digits. Peter Dutton, aka Il Douche, was played for the dill that he is by the Jesus-shopping ballot stuffer ScoMo who, cloaked in prosperity-doctrine entitlement engineered the whole charade to win the prize. A masterful display of Machiavellian deceit - three competitors brought down in one fell swoop: Trembles, Il Douche and Jewels.
The rabid Right was stunned. Their bullying and backstabbing had not paid off, but they will not give up. The Libs/Nats' move to the Opposition benches is imminent, and cue the Benny Hill theme music, a schism is inevitable.
This circus is worth the price of admission. Fairy floss anyone?