Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club appearance cannot be judged by normal standards of evidence or logic, because her appeal lies in grievance, demagoguery and a direct rejection of the journalists and institutions trying to scrutinise her.

It is pointless to judge Pauline Hanson’s appearance at the National Press Club on Wednesday by the standards we (as interest observers, journalists, or political junkies) normally apply. Why? Because she is not talking to us. We are irrelevant. Her audience is as dismissive of what we think, as she is. Which is? Totally.

That audience doesn’t care, or doesn’t appreciate, or even rejects, critiques that complain that her arguments are illogical, based on false premises and factually incorrect, and are racist. They like it that she uses a word such as ‘liar’ to describe the Prime Minister, and that she responds to media critics by following President Trump’s playbook – on this occasion damning one woman who dared question whether the Senator had a hand in the appointment of her daughter to a parliamentary advisory post as a ‘trashy journalist’.

Her captive audience now includes the growing band of ‘sovereign citizens’ who deny the legitimacy of our system of government and damn the mythical power that the United Nations is alleged to exert over all of us. Her solution, quit the UN.

She doesn’t pretend to........

© Pearls and Irritations