To sum up Monday night's return of Q&A;: it all adds up to … Donald.
Late on Monday night Australian time, a new Trumpism entered the language. In a tweet, the President of the Previously United States proclaimed that his decision-making was "based on an accumulation of data". Which was amusing given all available evidence, and which also prompted the thought from we, here in the Land of the Dumb Deal Down Under: "Mr President, were you watching Q&A;?"
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Q&A; returns with Trump-centric debate
The ABC's Q&A; returns to our screens with the panel discussing the lessons that voters and politicians can learn from a Donald Trump presidency. Vision courtesy ABC.
Because an "accumulation of data" derived from the return of the ABC's weekly celebration of going at it hammer and tongs delivered the following Trump-friendly results.
Mentions of Donald Trump: 47 by name, with another dozen or so nods to his official title of 'President", and innumerable mutterings of "Oh Jesus Christ, really?".
![Tony Jones,Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and Josh Frydenberg on Q&A.](/web/20170208131551im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/6/w/9/a/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu6w11.png/1486414402537.jpg)
Mentions of Malcolm Turnbull: a spectacular two - yes two! - by name, with another nine by his official title of "Prime Minister", and several coded references recorded as "very deep sighs".
Mentions of Cory Bernardi, Liberal Party renegade and putative Trump of the South Pacific: 16, with another couple of dozen Bernardi references noted as "shakes of the head requiring medical treatment".
That was the return of Q&A; by the numbers, and we'd better get used to it.
I reckon I'd get more sense watching Studio 10 #qanda pic.twitter.com/GeSToq5YNj
— Hasten Jason (@Hasten_Jason) February 6, 2017
It's Donald's world. We just live in it, as Malcolm Turnbull has to his great delight become familiar and as the rest of us are fast becoming accustomed. And as we wake each day to the Oval Office disgorgements of the leader of the free-for-the-time-being world, it helps to have people on hand to explain things. Lucky us. Because Q&A; miraculously managed to deliver not one, but two Trump sympathisers on a panel of five - three, if you counted the awkward presence of federal Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg.
The Minister for Wishing I'd Never Said That was in a bit of a pickle. Two years ago on this panel he'd called candidate Trump a "drop kick", and last year - just a few weeks before Trump's election - he'd declared: "I haven't seen a reason to back away from those comments."
Now, he offers diplomatically: "I have said, subsequent to that, that my comments should have been more judicious and everything that I say tonight is subject to extreme vetting."
It's OK, Minister. A lot of people are seeing a lot of reasons to back away from things they thought about Donald Trump last year - including everyone who thought he couldn't possibly be worse than advertised. Surprise!
Jesus Frydenberg #qanda isn't a bloody electioneering platform. Answer the goddamn question or shut the hell up.
— Scott Moody (@Scott_A_Moody) February 6, 2017
Even those who are nominally Trump supporters - such as Monday's Q&A; guest Daisy Cousens from the Menzies Research Institute - feel obliged to explain the President in the manner of a doctor advising that updating your will is only a precaution but really, you should get it done today.
"Look," Cousens declared. "The way you have to understand Donald Trump is that he is kind of like that weird relative that everyone has that comes over once a year at Christmas, who is nice, but occasionally he says things that just make you go, 'Oh, God, sorry, he didn't mean that', but ultimately you forgive him because he is nice and gives you the best presents. That is the only way to understand Donald Trump."
Cousens went on to explain that Trump's big attraction for millennials - yes, millennials, you again, afraid so - was his opposition to "political correctness".
"The times have moved on and we are not clinging to old traditionalist values anymore," she assured us, before concluding thus: "I think he is a valuable voice. I think his presidency will either be the best four years in American history or a complete disaster. There will be no in-between."
How do we vote @DaisyCousens off the island? Truly vile. #qanda
— Joel Andrew Parnis (@JoelParnis) February 6, 2017
Feel the love, Mr President - although to really feel the Trump love, you had to wait for the Q&A; contributions of Helen Andrews.
Andrews is an American-born, Australian-based policy analyst who one imagines spends her spare time skywriting her most obvious media talent - TRUMP SUPPORTER! - above the ABC's Sydney studios. It has been noticed, and Andrews did not fail to deliver on Monday night.
Suffice it to say that one of her earliest contributions was this, in debate over the Trump administration's contentious travel restrictions: "At this point, it is extremely inaccurate to talk about a ban on anything." Would you believe, the White House has been at pains to say this very thing! If only the president himself would stop using that pesky word "ban" (most recently, about 12 hours before Helen Andrews declared its use "extremely inaccurate" on Q&A;.)
anyway raise your hand if you're sick of helen andrews #qanda
— amy ✨ (@aryagendry) February 6, 2017
It fell to the panel's token lefties - the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and the visiting climate change activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez - to remind us that the world has not gone completely Trump mad. Indeed, Martinez - a self-assured and eloquent 16-year-old - was the wise head on young shoulders reminding us of the value of a bracing wake-up call.
"I think it's like when you're trying to sleep and someone dumps a bucket of cold water on you. Ice cold water. It wakes people up. That is the only successful thing that Trump has done … it has woken people up and brought people together. We are thankful to him for bringing over three million people worldwide together the day after his inauguration to stand in the streets and demonstrate that we are not going to stand for a hateful, racist bigot that is a tyrant who isn't going to bring out the values that the United States represents."
Could the audience questions be longer, please? Maybe longer than the answers? #QandA
— goatgirl (@goatgirlinoz) February 6, 2017
And right he is. When it comes to President Trump's "accumulation of data", those millions on the streets amount to a number that drives him quite nuts. Not a long trip, granted, but the scenery works wonders.