The last time I was in Washington, Scott Morrison was the prime minister and Donald Trump was the president. Morrison, like Anthony Albanese this week, was treated to a state dinner. That was a surreal affair. The soiree in September of 2019 was alfresco, in the Rose Garden of the White House. There were Trump people – a colourful coterie. Respecting the zeitgeist, the Morrison entourage was studded with the mega rich – Anthony Pratt with his shock of red hair, reclusive Gina Rinehart in bejewelled white and the younger Murdochs, Lachlan and Sarah, sleek as orcas in designer black.
That whole state visit was days of strobing insanity. I wasn’t with Albanese in Washington this week but it was clear from my distant vantage point that madness is now cordoned off from the White House. But dysfunction hasn’t been purged from the American political system. It abides in the legislature – paralysed for three weeks before the Australian prime minister’s arrival – and in the gladiatorial cable networks egging on the performative obstructionism of post-reality Republicans.
