Trump a reminder that governments should govern, not police |
Recently, US President Donald Trump was asked whether he was constrained by international law – or anything else. “Yeah,“ he said, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” Which was a concise illustration of the problem with his presidency.
Donald Trump says he is constrained only by “my own morality, my own mind”.Credit: AP
We expect politicians to do two things. First, to be true to themselves. Second, we expect them to play the role to which we have elected them – including acting within the constraints imposed by that role. With Trump, we have had too much Trump, not enough president.
Sussan Ley provides the opposite example. After eight months as opposition leader, Ley the individual has more or less disappeared. Her complete reversal on hate speech laws – the government was apparently too slow to act, until, suddenly, it was too fast – showed that she has become a symbol only. The path of least resistance through the Coalition: that is what “Sussan Ley” has come to mean.
The two expectations – personal and institutional – are often in conflict. A successful politician finds a balance.
That is why I doubt Anthony Albanese’s twin backdowns will hurt him much in the long run. One of his political strengths has been to understand the effect of time. He endured two years of political damage caused by inflation, seeing that at some point it would end. For all the talk of the “25 days” it took him to call a royal commission, the important........