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As Donald Trump produced his multitrillion-dollar Sharpie pen – surely, the only sharp tool in this US president’s toolbox – to sign his One Big Beautiful Bill on July 4, political leaders across the world must have been in awe.
The bill, critics estimate, will cut healthcare for 17 million poor Americans, amid other cruelty. Children relying on lunches served by their schools will go hungry across the land.
President Donald Trump signs his signature bill into law.Credit: AP
What did Trump have to say about this as he signed his bill into law, flourishing his signature at a ceremony on the South Lawn at the White House?
“The largest spending cut, and yet, you won’t even notice it,” Trump said, skating over the expected impact of cuts to Medicaid and food security.
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“The people are happy, they’re happy.”
Perhaps he was referring to the monstrously wealthy who’ll get big, beautiful tax cuts that will make them even wealthier, though, knee-deep in their billions, they’d be unlikely to actually notice it.
Overhead screamed a flight of warplanes and B-2 stealth jets, the like of which only two weeks ago dumped bunker-buster bombs on Iran. A president who lusts after a Nobel Peace Prize can never have too many warplanes at his White House celebrations.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan and NSW’s Chris Minns could take a lesson.
The Albanese government’s decision to grant Woodside an extension to the year 2070 to operate its north-west shelf oil and gas project, despite screams that it endangers ancient Aboriginal rock art and spews pollution into the air?
“You won’t even notice it,” Albanese might have said with a fair dollop of truth on his side, given its remote location. “The people are happy, they’re happy.”
And he’d be right, assuming he was talking about Western Australia’s bean counters.
And Melbourne’s stratospherically expensive Suburban Rail Loop?
“You won’t even notice it,” Allan might have said, rather than getting bogged down in endless arguments over whether the thing was even worth doing. It will, after all, be underground.
Say this sort of thing enough times and people will come to believe it.
Trump’s second coming proves it. The man is clearly a stable genius, a lesson to lesser leaders everywhere.
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