Northern Rivers resident & former NSW Liberal MLC Catherine Cusack: "I hadn’t realised the former PM’s capacity to upset ordinary people and destroy their trust in government, until now"

Former Liberal MLA Catherine Cusack, writing in The Guardian, 19 August 2022:

I hadn’t realised the former PM’s capacity to upset ordinary people and destroy their trust in government, until now

The most powerful man in the land exploited a health crisis to extract yet more power.’ Photograph: Steven Saphore/AFP/Getty Images

Scott Morrison still possesses an incredible ability to divide and destroy the Australian polity.

His capacity to upset ordinary people – erode their hopes and sour trust in the institutions they are forced to rely on – was overwhelming during Q+A on Thursday.

Technically I was a panel member – but for me, the audience is always the real panel and it was dismaying to observe their bewilderment, cynicism and anguish on the topic of the former prime minister.

I have personally been so twisted up about him since his dreadful visit as prime minister to Lismore after the floods that I hadn’t fully comprehended his wider toxic impact.

That is, until Thursday – listening to Penrith residents ask simple, legitimate questions, and watching their reactions while the camera was fixed on panellists who could only offer solidarity in lieu of answers. Because there are no acceptable answers. Morrison is relentlessly breaking the heart of Australian faith in democracy. And he seems to find that funny.

I do not believe anyone can truthfully say they “know” Morrison. I can say I have “experienced” Scott for 22 years. I have thought about him, tried to work with him and desperately wanted to understand him as a member of his Liberal “team”.

What a quixotic quest that turned out to be. Initially my concern was for the impact his scheming and power games were having on the Liberal party. When as state director he helped Alex Hawke take over scores of strategic Liberal branches it changed the culture of our organisation.

The scheming escalated to the point of thwarting his own party’s efforts to select candidates for the federal election. It made no sense. On 7.30 Leigh Sales asked “why?” and we were given the ludicrous reply: “I did it to help women.”

Understandably, the ordinary citizen may not care how the NSW Liberal party has been so ruthlessly used and rendered a smoking ruin. But Morrison and his government’s power games have had direct impacts on people’s lives.

I felt that intensely during the Northern Rivers floods. Under his government, victims in a Nationals electorate received cash payments denied to victims in a Labor electorate. The pain inflicted was far more than financial. This nasty political parry crushed a desperate community that needed solidarity and compassionate leadership. Instead, they were made to feel like worthless political pawns.

This was a betrayal of a government’s duty to serve every citizen of this country.

Donald Trump-incited insurrection did not stop the joint sitting of the US Senate & House of Representatives certification and counting of the electoral college votes in the 2020 presidential election

 

A member of the large Trump-incited mob which forced its way into the U.S. Congress while it was in session on 

6 January 2021. It was this individual who was part of a group which invaded the Senate Chamber and, who 

posed for photographs at the podium. Note the lethal tip to his flag-draped staff.

A little before 8:24am on 7 January 2021 (Sydney, Australia time), outgoing President Donald J. Trump tweeted a one minute video of himself speaking to his political base in which he addressed the armed mob of domestic terrorists - who even then had been violently invading the U.S. Congress for over three hours - in words to the effect that they were good people, patriots. 

Telling them "we love you, you're very special" - as he purported to call for "peace".

By that point on 6 January 2021 (Washington DC time) the scheduled joint sitting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives had been suspended and one person in this violent mob had been fatally shot by police and reportedly another three people in the building had died from other causes.

Finally, the social media platform Twitter reacted to the very real danger Donald Trump presented to the citizens of America and its democratic institutions…..

This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump's video. We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.

— Guy Rosen (@guyro) January 6, 2021

This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump's video. We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.

— Guy Rosen (@guyro) January 6, 2021

This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked.

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 7, 2021

Our public interest policy — which has guided our enforcement action in this area for years — ends where we believe the risk of harm is higher and/or more severe.
https://t.co/ZcbhDEAYjH

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 7, 2021

 

The Trump-incited insurrection in action on 6 January 2021.....

IMAGE: abc7

Pro-Trump mob invading the Capitol building....

IMAGE: Yahoo! News UK

IMAGE: IrishTimes

Capitol Hill security personnel attempting to keep the rampaging mob out 

of the House of Representatives chamber......

IMAGE: Twitter

People in the House of Representatives chamber gallery sheltering 

from the mob....

IMAGE: abc7

Members of Congress fleeing the House chamber....

IMAGE: NBC News

Despite the attempt to derail the joint sitting of both Houses convened to confirm the previously recorded electoral college votes (and it is 

rumoured an attempt by those domestic terrorists to steal the original electoral college vote forms) at 7.44pm on 7 January 2021 (Sydney, Australia time) the U.S. Congress confirmed that Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris are respectively President-elect and Vice President-elect of the United States of America with a majority of 306 electoral votes each.

The 46th inauguration of a duly-elected American president will proceed 

as planned on 20 January 2021.

Unless Trump's terrorists take another lethally violent step.

BACKGROUND

President Trump Save America rally January 6: full comments

https://youtu.be/8X0KIYInLHc

NOTE: 

As is usual, Facebook was slower to respond to the unfolding danger.

According to The Guardian on 8 January 2021: 

Donald Trump will be suspended from Facebook and Instagram indefinitely and at least until the end of his time in office, Mark Zuckerberg has said, as a consequence of his support for the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday. 

The US president was initially suspended from the social network for 24 hours, as a result of two posts shared to the platform in which he appeared to praise the actions of the rioters. 

In a post to Facebook on Thursday, Zuckerberg said the suspension would last much longer. “The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” Facebook’s chief executive wrote. 

“We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”

Facebook Inc being exposed as placing advertising revenue ahead of safeguarding democratic election campaign processes

https://youtu.be/1iCVn_JvOiQ

The New York Times, 30 October 2019:

At the Capitol last week, Mark Zuckerberg didn’t have much of an answer to a question about addressing lies in political ads on Facebook.Credit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Not in the Cold War, not during Vietnam, not during Watergate did I ever fear more for my country. 

If America's worst enemies had spent years designing a plan to erode our greatest strengths, they could not have done better than what some of our fellow citizens are doing to the country every day for short-term financial or political gain. 

Prominent figures in government, politics and commerce are behaving in ways that are so destructive of the core institutions and norms that underpin our democracy, one can only assume that they take the country's stability as a given -- that they can abuse and stress it all they want and it won't break. 

They are wrong. We can break America, and right now we're on our way there. Not in the Cold War, not during Vietnam, not during Watergate did I ever fear more for my country. 

This moment "is like Wall Street before the financial crisis, when everyone just took for granted that the system was forever stable," remarked Gautam Mukunda, research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of "Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter." 

"So they kept taking bigger and bigger risks and pushing it harder and harder -- until they pushed too hard and it crashed and the government had to step in and rescue everyone. If they keep acting like this, Trump and his allies will keep getting short-term wins until the system crashes. Only there won't be any government to step in and rescue them, because they'll have broken it -- and the country along with it." 

What am I talking about? I'm talking about a president willing to sink to banana republic governing norms, including withholding aid to Ukraine to compel its leadership to investigate his political rival. 

I'm talking about Republican lawmakers who know that the president's Ukraine machinations are indefensible and impeachable, particularly after Tuesday's disclosures by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, that he personally heard President Trump appeal to Ukraine's president to investigate Joe Biden. 

Republicans now have a clear choice: let the constitutional impeachment process proceed or attack the process, i.e., our legislative-judicial order. Alas, a majority seem to be opting for the latter. 

They justify it with daily new conspiracy theories amplified by Fox News. They even stormed a secure room in the Capitol to mislead the public into thinking these hearings are totally one-sided -- when in fact both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and lawyers from the relevant committees are doing the questioning. 

In attacking all the diplomats, intelligence officers and civil servants who have stepped forward, at great professional risk, to bear witness against Trump, they are attacking the people who uphold the regulations -- and provide the independent research and facts -- that make our government legitimate and the envy of people all over the world, where many people have to bribe government workers for service. 

And, finally, there's the internet barons who for too long ignored the weaponization of social media, which is turning our free press into a house of mirrors, where citizens can no longer cognitively discern fact from fiction and make informed judgments essential for democracy. 

I watch it all and wonder: "Are you really doing that? Do you all go home at night to some offshore island where the long-term damage you're doing to America doesn't matter?" 

And what's even more frightening is that there are now so many incentives in place in media and politics -- from gerrymandering to unlimited campaign contributions to data systems that can ever more perfectly define us, divide us and subdivide us -- to ensure that these people will keep on hammering our system until they smash it to pieces. 

Look at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was questioned last Wednesday at a House hearing by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A.O.C. was trying to grasp why Zuckerberg thinks it's O.K. for politicians to run political ads that contain obvious lies, as the Trump campaign has already done in a Facebook ad about Biden viewed by some five million Facebook users. 

This is all about money for Zuckerberg, but he disguises his motives in some half-baked theory about freedom of the press -- so half-baked that he couldn't explain it even when he knew he would be asked about it by a congressional committee. 
Read it and weep: 

A.O.C.: "Could I run ads targeting Republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal?" 

M.Z.: "Can you repeat that?" 

A.O.C.: "Would I be able to run advertisements on Facebook targeting Republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal? If you're not fact-checking political advertisements, I'm trying to understand the bounds here of what's fair game." 

M.Z.: "I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head." 

A.O.C.: "Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements?" 

M.Z.: "Congresswoman, I think lying is bad. I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie, that would be bad. That's different from it being -- in our position, the right thing to prevent your constituents or people in an election from seeing that you had lied." 

A.O.C.: "So you won't take down lies or you will take down lies? It's a pretty simple yes or no." 

M.Z.: "Congresswoman, in most cases, in a democracy, I believe people should be able to see for themselves what politicians they may or may not vote for are saying and judge their character for themselves." 

Yeah, right, as if average citizens are able to discern the veracity of every political ad after years of being conditioned by responsible journalism to assume the claims aren't just made up. 

Just once I'd like to see Zuckerberg look into a camera and say: "I will take Facebook stock down to $1 if that is what it takes to ensure that we're never again an engine for the perversion of democracy in any country, starting with my own. Facebook is not going to accept any more political ads until we have the resources to fact-check them all." 

I doubt he'll do that, though, because his priorities are profits and power, and he seems quite ready to hurt American democracy to get them......