There’s a real “no winners” vibe to both the announcement Donald Trump Jr is postponing his Australian tour and its aftermath. Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson is probably glad he reached his quota of calling something, anything, “woke” for the day in criticising Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil’s tweets that called Trump Jr a “sore loser” and a “big baby” who “isn’t very popular”. O’Neil had also said that his father, former president Donald Trump, had “lost an election fair and square”.
But content hounds will be disappointed to miss out on the spectacle of a sniffling, sweat-drenched Trump Jr owning the left by talking about his father’s genitals. And it’s certainly not a good day for O’Neil, who was forced to delete the tweets (reportedly under orders from the PM’s office), having publicly mocked the son of a famously chaotic and thin-skinned political figure, and made international headlines doing so, less than 18 months out from an election that might once again make him the president of our most powerful ally.
Trump Jr’s postponement came on Wednesday after an organiser for Turning Point Australia wrote: “It seems America isn’t the only country that makes it difficult for the Trumps … Hold on to your tickets, this is a short delay nothing more #CancelCulture.”
The government has made it clear that Trump Jr got his visa, and both O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles have hinted the decision may have more to do with slow ticket sales than cancel culture. Nigel Farage, proving he is incapable of embarrassment by taking a job as Trump Jr’s “support act”, insists tickets are selling well, telling Twitter that 8000 tickets have already been sold but “very late granting of a visa left too little time for travel logistics” and “many are saying that the late visa is in effect a form of cancel culture”.
If Turning Point Australia’s and Farage’s claims are true that the Australian government has made it unduly difficult for a Trump to get into the country, it’s a chilling development. I mean, can you imagine being denied entry to a supposedly free and democratic country, just because of your political beliefs? Who would punish a child for the actions of their parents like this? What’s next, being stopped at the border and interrogated on your personal views about the country’s political leaders? Does Trump Jr’s humanity not come into it?
