James Bond, Oz, A Fool

Something I find fascinating is how often, and (seemingly) how deliberately certain figures on the Right do their level best to look and act like Bond villains. I mean, consider #MoscowMitch. Here he is already about as attractive as a pocket-sized version of Gamera the killer turtle…and, if you ever get a chance, listen to him on Youtube or wherever while he cackles like the Wicked Witch Of Washington and clearly delights in being “the Grim Reaper,” killing off any bill introduced by a Democrat.

He comes off as diabolic as an underweight Professor Moriarty with a side-order of extra cheese and meanness.

In fact, let’s face it. Mitch is just an orbital space canon away from having his own Man From Uncle episode.

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Don’t get the reference? Go to IMDB.com. Then say, with a sneer, Okay, Boomer.

Perfectly acceptable.

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Then there’s our friends in Australia. Consider their current Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. (I write this in January of 2020, so things could change by the time you see it).

Australia is now in the midst of perfectly horrible bushfires. Scenes that can only be described as apocalyptic have flashed onto screens around the world — blood red or orange skies, people in flight, homes reduced to ash, refugees in boats trying to make it out to safety and the sea. It all has the feel of the Bergman film Skammen, or, worse, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

And what has Morrison done? Pretty much nothing—other, that is, then deny that there’s any link between burning coal and global warming. You could almost forgive him for that, but the fact that he’s also done very, very little to assist the first responders and fire fighters saving lives from the flames is terrifying. I can’t imagine what his motivation could possibly be. Maybe it is some Libertarian or Neoliberal thing, a belief that any expenditure of resources by the government, for any cause whatsoever (except war, of course), is forbidden.

The result? He presents to the world a nearly perfect picture of elite indifference to the suffering of lesser humans. It is as though he sat down with his top advisers and said, “What can we do to present ourselves as horrible and hideous and a threat to human existence?”

And one of the advisors, maybe Angus Taylor, says, “I’ve got an idea! Let’s create a photo-op in which you stand in front of a burning country, and pretend that nothing is wrong, even as the flames consume animals, homes, and humans.”

“Perfect,” says the PM, and then goes on vacation to Hawaii.

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Oh, and if you had any doubts, just the other day, the former Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, told an Israeli reporter that not only is global warming a myth, but that climate change activists are terribly dangerous. They are a cult, he said, to be equated with the Islamic and Chinese threats to Western Civilization.

It is so fascinating.

And do we recall that our own Rupert Murdoch is of the same class and community, a Right-Wing Australian, who came to the United States and founded Fox News?

Might be something there to consider.

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All of which means that Morrison also has terrific potential to be a Bond villain. A cold and ruthless one. With no personal charisma or charm.

Say, in a way, Ernst Stavro Blofeld…

But with Vegemite.

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But of all those currently on view in the Right, there is one who can never have a role, I fear, in an Ian Fleming novel or one of its imitators. He’ll never be up against Bond…whichever actor it is that will next play the man. (Or woman, thinking of Dr. Who).

I refer, of course, to Donald Trump.

Why not him? Well, consider, Bond villains may have very different characteristics. But, as a rule, they have a few things in common. For instance, they are quiet. They are sinister but silent. They speak in measured tones when they speak at all, and then usually just to impart instructions to their henchmen, or explanations to Bond himself (“Do you expect me to talk?” “No, I expect you to die.” All said without once raising his voice.)

Thus, the Bond villain may be quiet and thin, like Dr. No. Or quiet and fat, like Goldfinger. Or quiet and somewhere in the middle, like Emilio Largo from Thunderball.

But they are not loud.

Contrast that to Trump…

Who is nothing if not loud…nothing if not theatrical…nothing if not a mouth running at full tilt and a tongue wagging at both ends (and the middle) at the same time.

And thus…sadly, he cannot be a genuinely Miltonian villain, a true Lucifer, no matter how much he might aspire to be so. He won’t be a Dr. No or a Goldfinger or a Largo. He won’t even be a minor henchmen, an Oddjob or a Jaws.

He will never be great. Not even a great villain.

He will be, at best, a second rate vaudevillian, orange makeup on his face and a threadbare wig upon his balding head…strutting across a creaking stage before a thinning audience…

Until finally, like Shakespeare’s poor player, he is gone…and heard no more.

And not a moment too soon.

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About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.