From a photo from The Guardian
It's the smirk; that perpetual, condescending, self-satisfied smirk. It's a creepy display of the arrogance of a smug holy-roller who literally believes he has a red carpet awaiting his ascent to join the celestial choir come the rapture while we undeserving outsiders are to be condemned to eternal torment, both in this life and in the firey beyond.
"My personal faith in Jesus Christ is not a political agenda" said FauxMo the god-shopper who sought out his preferred version of Jesus and found it in the Pentacostal Retail Therapy franchise.
His Prime Ministership, facilitated by prayer and regular monthly payments, is his Armageddon dress rehearsal - a dry run for the end of the world. It explains so much about a patronising elitist whose superstitions, despite his denials, are a core part of who he his and how he shapes and sells his political agenda.
Religion is an escape - it's a comfort blanket, a crutch, a denial of the harsh realities of our transient existence on a tiny blue dot in an immense, timeless cosmos. It's Santa Claus for adults - where an old bearded guy maintains a list of who's been naughty and who's been nice. I happily went along with the jolly, florid fatman myth for my kids at Christmas when they were little, and I don't challenge the religious notions of the elderly who, staring imminent oblivion in the eye, seek out comfort in the notion of eternal repose by an astral spa where the sun lounges have not all been reserved by Germans. Religion in that context is harmless.
But throughout history religion has otherwise manifested itself in the demonisation and persection of the others, those not of the "true faith", while providing fortune and favour for the cults' CEOs and their bag carriers. Does that not line up nicely with FauxMo's words and deeds?
Who could watch Morrison's shouty, spittled hectoring in Pariament and not be reminded of a revivalist preacher haranguing a congregation with confected outrage at hell-bound scapegoats and promising that salvation requires deference to he who has a special relationship with an almighty?
This is a bloke who ignores science; who credits his IVF daughters to a god-given miracle but not to the science that enabled it. More ominously Brother Scotty also attributes his election win to another miracle - one that the Big Guy signed off on after a prayer session. Divine intervention! If Jesus is OK with his Machieavelian back-stabbing then perhaps FauxMo sees himself as a legitimate inheritor of the doctrine of the divine right of kings - subject to no earthly authority. The arrogance, the hubris, the disdain for scrutiny and accountability, the appeal to his "quiet Australians" as obedient, unquestioning supplicants to his authority; it all fits the profile of a bloke who cannot separate his paternalistic religion from his day job.
Most, if not all, of those who attain high political office are egotists, many are in it for the power and self-enrichment, some are despots, some are standard-issue nutters and weirdos (g'day Tony) and others are fully-fledged, orange-tinted loon-ponders. Of the current shop of horrors - Putin, Kim, Xi, Trump, Johnson, Farrage, Bolsanaro, Duterte, Orban, Al Assad, Netanyahu et al only Morrison is an overt religionist. That does not let religion off the hook - it simply makes Scooter somewhat of an exception, believing he's there by divine providence and not just political artiface which just makes him a more zealous threat to our fairness and freedoms.
With his exclusionary god on his side FauxMo can demonise and punish all undeserving outsiders with a clear conscience. The unemployed, the underemployed, the poor, the indigenous, the homeless, asylum seekers, environmentalists and vegan activists are all fair game. Dissent and scrutiny are to be outlawed - GetUp, whistleblowers and unions are to be persecuted. Expertise that diverges from the scripture of Brother Scotty, whether scientists, the public service or our institutions like the CSIRO and ABC, is to be silenced or ignored.
With the rapture pending he does not care a jot for the health of the planet - why should he, it's all going to end soon. He's King Cnut; trying to hold back the progressive tides until Armageddon. Unluckily for him it's the unfolding climate disasters and a tanking economy that will see his acolytes start to abandon the pews. Morrison has a messiah complex, but despite his mushroom politics he cannot hide the incompetence and graft, his spin has spun and in the battle of ideas he's left holding the beers. Without his religion he's got nothing but a smirk.
It won't be too long before the dak shatter goes terminal and the hairless Hitler, Spud-Dutton, seizes his chance. Heaven help us!
