"Occupational hazard, Laurie, the more beer I serve, the more my customers declare their undying love."
"Crikey! I had no idea business was so good." Laurie squinted theatrically at the line of cards. "Is one of those from Les?"
"No, no. Les is much too sensible."
"Whew." Laurie glanced towards the table by the window at the back of the bar. Les raised an empty ale glass by way of welcoming his favourite drinking companion.
"I’ll bring them over", Hannah smiled.
"Happy New Year." Les stretched out his hand and Laurie grasped it firmly.
"And what a year it’s turning out to be. Has there ever been a blizzard of presidential activity like Trump’s?"
"Actually, Laurie, there has, but not for more than 90 years. The first hundred days of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency were even more dramatic than Trump’s. Just as well, really, because the US was in much worse shape in 1933 than it is now."
"That’s right. Roosevelt told Americans that the only thing they had to fear was ‘fear itself’, so he was determined to show them he wasn’t afraid of tackling the economic crisis paralysing the US economy."
"Well, OK, that was Roosevelt’s first hundred days. What about Trump’s first 24 days?"
"This might surprise you, Laurie, but I reckon he’s putting on a bloody impressive performance."
"Really? I’m gobsmacked. I assumed you’d be breathing fire and brimstone about a far-Right coup, and branding Trump a tyrant."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, that’s what the so-called ‘Left’ are calling him. But, you won’t hear that from me. Because, in a free and fair election, Trump won fair and square. What’s more, on election night, back in November, he pledged to his followers: ‘promises made, promises kept’ — and, so far, he’s keeping his word by turning the US upside down and pulling it inside out. And, I’ll tell you what, Laurie, it’s not just the scale of Trump’s disruption that’s impressed me; it’s that massive change is happening at all."
"I know, I know. And when was the last time that happened? — apart from 90 years ago!"
"Exactly. Roosevelt — an American aristocrat — understood that if the American republic was to remain the same, then everything would have to change. Trump’s vision is much more radical. He understands that if the American dream is to be resurrected ... "
"If America is to be made great again ... "
"That’s it. If America is to be made great again, then everything that is preventing it from being great has to be destroyed. That’s why he’s recruited Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, to ‘move fast and break things’ ... "
"That was Mark Zuckerburg ... "
"Was it? Sorry. But you get what I mean."
"I sure do. And so do the elites. They all went to the same Ivy League colleges, subscribe to the same liberal ideas, and, until the Second Coming of Trump, were all supremely indifferent to the political colouration of the individual sitting in the White House. Because while presidents came and went, the permanent state — which they controlled — rolled on forever."
"But, not any more, eh Laurie? Not any more. Just look at the US Agency for International Development, USAid. For decades, we lefties denounced it as the human face of American imperialism — the Kumbaya Division of the National Security State. If the CIA was Uncle Sam’s nasty cop, USAid was its nice one."
"Like the missionaries softening up the natives before the colonists arrived with their muskets."
"Hey, that’s pretty good, Laurie. We’ll make a leftie of you yet."
"That’s the whole point, Les. Trump’s unleashing a revolution, tearing up the rules, repairing what’s been broken. It makes me laugh when I hear people say: ‘he can’t do that, it’s a breach of international law!’ Well, so was the invasion of Iraq — and Ukraine. The only question all the bleating defenders of the ‘rules-based international order’ should be asking themselves is who’s going to stop Trump’s America? The Danes? The Canadians? The Panamanians? Hamas?"
"So, Laurie, is your name down for one of the ‘beautiful’ new seaside apartments that the Trump International Reconstruction Corporation, with massive assistance from the Saudis, will soon be erecting in Gaza?"
■Chris Trotter is an Auckland writer and commentator.
