Frank Greenall: Trouserless in la-la land

What the Donald actually said, he claims, was that he was going build - not a "wall" - but a "mall". We misheard.

Those of a certain vintage may recall a gay Scottish ditty - "Donald, Where's Your Troosers?" A hit of the day, it was fetchingly rendered by the popular Caledonian songster, Andy Stewart, who knew how to wring every ha'p'orth of Scotch sentimentality from his parochial audiences.

The song was, of course, referencing kilt-wearing haggis eaters. But there's also an allied piece of idiom applied to someone who's more show than go: "He's all hat and no trousers".

Between the two, it's not hard to draw parallels with the most famous Donald of our time – current CEO of the planet's economic powerhouse and cultural mecca for many a lonely Croatian goat herder or under-privileged Chad teenager aspiring to the rich consumer lives showcased via their nifty cell phones.

But let's take one of the Donald's defining issues in his presidential campaign – building THE WALL between Mexico and the USA. Pronto. According to his own CV, only he had the cojones to repel all those job-stealing rapist wet-backs. He was The Man to keep American safe, so that God-fearing patriots could publicly exhibit their right to bear arms while simultaneously demonstrating the skilled target grouping required to decimate assorted congregations of innocent fellow citizens.

A year down the track, people are naturally asking why there's not much evidence of an actual wall. Apparently it's all our own fault, and we need to get our ears waxed.

What the Donald actually said, he claims, was that he was going build – not a "wall" – but a "mall". We misheard. This is going to be first coast to coast mall in the entire history of humankind, a public/private partnership deal built in conjunction with – appropriately enough – Walmart.

This way, Mexico ends up paying for it all - as promised by the Donald - through their retail activity. Instead of swimming rivers, crossing deserts or scaling barbed wire fences, now Mexicans will be seduced into becoming mall rats and shopping till they drop, thereby losing the wherewithal to further penetrate USA territory.

Similarly, early in his presidency the Donald declared he was going to cut the mother of all Gordian knots and broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And not just any old peace - this peace was going to be the most terrific, sensational and smartest piece of peace ever.

How he was to accomplish this diplomatic masterstroke was uncertain. Now we know, and it's poetry in motion to behold. By endorsing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the Donald has so enraged the Palestinians and various Islamic stakeholders that new levels of colloquy between the protagonists have been achieved. True, a colloquy of white hot enmity, but colloquy nonetheless. And conflicted peoples that colloquy together, obloquy together - a type of intercourse apparently only a hair's breadth away from everlasting amity.

Peter Ustinov, the great actor and general Renaissance man, regarded the US President's role as fairly straightforward - the President had only to look and sound confident, which implied they knew what they were doing. This meant all the behind-the-scenes people who actually ran the show could quietly get on with the real business at hand.

Although Ustinov was pre-Trump, he would approve of the Trump style, and even congratulate him for raising the Presidential profile. Trump isn't satisfied to simply be the White House frontman – he wants to give the public value for money by providing copious raw material for the bizarre and conflicted, the basis of all modern Reality TV programming.

Nuclear war in Korea, melt-down in the Middle East, a shopping mall longer than the Great Wall of China, tax cuts for egregiously gouging corporates, more walkies on the moon…all winning scenarios for Donald's new season virtual-world TV schedule, in which he fancies himself as star.

The public at large are either diverted or appalled but, hey, everyone's talking about the Donald. Ain't that the name of the TV game!

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