This book won’t tell you much that you didn’t already know about the current U.S. president—his personality, his psycholToo close and not close enough
This book won’t tell you much that you didn’t already know about the current U.S. president—his personality, his psychological makeup—the man’s not exactly a closed book.
But that’s not this book’s purpose. The author isn’t concerned so much with the ‘what’ as the ‘why and how’. As a psychologist she naturally places the locus of this question with Donald’s family, upbringing and formative years.
Finding the answers is tricky—you need someone who 1) has access to the family’s intimate moments, but 2) also has enough distance to put them in proper perspective. Donald’s surviving siblings would be best placed to meet the first criteria but, having spent their whole lives swimming in the same toxic water, would probably fail the second. As the insider-outsider niece, Mary L. Trump had a decent shot at being the ideal observer, but as it turns out she’s just not quite able to meet either one of these hurdles (except for one meaningful occasion).
Not being part of the inner sanctum, the author relies heavily on recollections from her aunt, Maryanne Trump Barry, and this rather hampers her ability to analyse the family dynamics in any depth. It’s a fairly shallow portrayal of a family where ‘wealth = success’ and success is the sole measure of a person’s worth. While she acknowledges the coldness and cruelty this toxic value system spawned, and how it created the man for whom ‘everything is transactional’, the author doesn’t really ask where these values come from, or about the wider culture that fosters them. She objects to Donald’s ‘success’ being essentially faked—but doesn’t seem aware (or sufficiently interested in?) the deleterious psychological effects of massive wealth in and of itself.
For one dramatic moment in the book though, she is the ideal observer—the death of her father, Donald’s older brother Fred Jr. This is one instance where Mary L. Trump was both present and central to events. At 16, she was old enough and independent-minded enough to recognise the family’s callousness for exactly what it was. And the event was shattering enough that her vivid memories of it are credible. It’s heartbreaking stuff. In a move emblematic of the man he is now, devoid of compassion and easily bored: while waiting for news of his big brother’s death, Donald went to the movies....more
This Saturday, Australians will go to the polls to elect our 46th parliament. I’ll be away from home, but I will be able to wander into any polling boThis Saturday, Australians will go to the polls to elect our 46th parliament. I’ll be away from home, but I will be able to wander into any polling booth to easily cast my vote. My brother in America will send in a postal vote. My sister on holiday in Germany will vote at an embassy there. My parents voted two weeks ago at a pre-polling station.
Voting in federal elections has been compulsory in Australia for 95 years, but the price of abstaining is small, a mere $20 fine. Even so, virtually everyone who is eligible to do so will vote. It’s possible to submit an invalid or blank ballot paper, thereby dodging the fine, but hardly anyone will do that either. By forcing people to vote, Australia has created a nation of politically engaged citizens who love to vote.
Elections are administered by an independent, non-partisan body which ensures the electoral roll is as complete and accurate as possible, and that voting is available to all. There is telephone voting for the blind, postal voting for the housebound, mobile polling teams visiting hospitals, prisons, remote locations etc. Changes of address on the roll are dealt with seamlessly, thanks to data sharing between various agencies. The system is impartial and uniform across the country. When the law says citizens must vote, as a corollary you have to make it easy for them to vote.
Our political system is far from perfect. Election campaigns can be still be downright ugly and marred by lies, pork-barrelling and smearing of opponents. Minority interest groups have far less influence here than in other countries, which can be good or bad depending on the interest group and your point of view. When *everyone* votes, both sides of politics court the middle ground, meaning elections are fought over middle-class, mainstream issues (or at least issues that the parties have framed as such), which again can be good and bad. But we don’t have problems of voter suppression, tampering, rigging, or gerrymandering. Whatever the result, everyone’s voice counts.
Judith Brett’s book is a fascinating history of how we came to have this system that we often take for granted. In addition to compulsory voting, our method of preferential voting (rather than ‘first-past-the post’) and its consequences, the (historically early) enfranchisement of women and the shameful disenfranchisement of Aboriginal people are briefly examined.
‘How we got here’ is a complex historical muddle of genuine efforts to devise the fairest, most democratic and majoritarian system possible, and self-interested attempts to manipulate the system for partisan advantage, in ways that can seem counterintuitive today. Labor opposed Aboriginal men having the vote, because it was assumed those working on farms would vote the way their wealthy white bosses told them to. Conservatives supported women’s suffrage, because it would swell the numbers of city voters, which benefited them. Non-Labor parties advocated preferential voting, so as not to hand a win to Labor by cannibalising each other’s votes (today, preferential voting tends to benefit Labor). The actual effects of each measure were not nearly so predictable, and these efforts frequently backfired, but once enacted the measures were politically entrenched and all but impossible to reverse. Ironically, it seems, the jockeying for advantage by both sides resulted in a virtually tamper-proof electoral system that is extremely difficult to manipulate to one side’s advantage.
“The combination of Saturday (elections) and compulsory voting creates the distinctive holiday spirit of Australian election days.” Brett says, and this is indeed true. Anyone can set up a stall outside a polling booth, so lots of community groups use the opportunity to do some fundraising with cake stalls and outdoor sausage sizzles (hence the tradition of eating a ‘democracy sausage’ on election day). It’s like having thousands of mini neighbourhood fetes all at once, with an emphasis on voting being orderly, pleasant, and even fun.
From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage is not a dry textbook or an in-depth analysis (criticisms of the system are given short shrift), but rather it is an accessible, quick and easy read for anyone casually interested in Australian elections and political history. It’s also a timely reminder to Aussies (who might be feeling a little disillusioned with politics right now) of just how lucky we are....more
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