We are trying – admittedly, without much success so far – to make our home a Tr*mp-free zone. It's just too depressing. Watching a great nation disgrace itself before the rest of the world.
The former proudly self-proclaimed leader of the free world suffering a loss of confidence and applying for early retirement.
A nation that every year scoops the pool of Nobel prizes, electing a crazy, ignorant, wilful old man, not so much Trump as Chump.
His latest stroke of genius – reneging on America's commitment to the Paris climate agreement – has been almost universally condemned, including by a great number of Americans, especially many business leaders.
But, congenital optimist that I am, I see some perverse comfort in all this. The American people are being brought face-to-face with what it means for their future when the world's second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases decides that the minor disruption of doing something to protect itself from the huge disruption of continuing global warming just isn't worth it.
This rational self-interest?
I'm prepared to bet that the next elected president will have climate protection at the top of his to-do list. Indeed, Donald Trump's becoming such an embarrassment to his compatriots I'd bet the next president's platform will be to do the opposite to Trump on 'most everything.
Then there's the band of American state governments – led by the two most powerful, California and New York – willing to step into the leadership vacuum their federal government has left. And the mayors of many cities.
Of course, as we know from earlier this year – when our federal government sought to use South Australia's blackouts for political point-scoring rather than a cue for policy correction, thus obliging the SA Premier to step in with expensive local interventions to a national problem – having states try to make up for a federal government's refusal to accept responsibility is far from ideal.
Which bring us to Malcolm Turnbull, whose statements and actions as Prime Minister contrast markedly with what every voter knows are his long-held views on climate change.
One thing to be said for Trump is that at least he's made an honest man of himself. He has no concern about global warming and isn't willing to do anything to combat it, but doesn't pretend otherwise.
Here, Turnbull professes eternal loyalty to the Paris Agreement and reaffirms our (inadequate) target to achieve a 26 to 28 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels, without having any credible policy by which to achieve it.
Actually, we haven't had a credible policy to reduce emissions since Tony Abbott abolished Julia Gillard's carbon tax-cum-emissions trading scheme in July 2014.
Abbott's professed reason for doing so was the claimed huge increase in the price of electricity and gas the scheme caused, and the massive economic damage this would lead to.
Prices did come down a bit, but soon continued on their upward way. Truth is, the carbon tax – and the renewable energy target – were never a major part of the reason for the big increases in energy prices since the turn of the century.
Even so, concerns about climate change are at the heart of the problems we're having maintaining an energy system that avoids blackouts without costing the earth (in the earlier sense of that phrase).
That, plus the various problems that have emerged with that finest flower of micro-economic reform, the national electricity market (the greatest source of price increases).
Ancient coal-fired power stations are being closed down, while no business in its right mind would invest in new coal-fired stations that are unlikely to be used for much of their 30 to 50-year potential working lives.
At the same time, however, businesses are reluctant to invest in industrial-scale renewable energy when the Coalition government has displayed such hostility to renewables and created such uncertainty about their future.
Have you noticed how our response to climate change and our problems with electricity have morphed into the same issue?
There's little concern to limit emissions except from the generation of electricity. And there's no solution to reliable, reasonably priced power that doesn't involve controlling emissions.
On Friday the chief scientist, Professor Alan Finkel, will deliver his long-awaited report on "the future energy security of the national electricity market".
What's needed is a mechanism to regulate the transition from fossil fuels to renewables in a way that reduces emissions while providing certainty to both kinds of energy providers.
Last year all the key players agreed the best approach would be an "emissions intensity scheme". All bar the Turnbull government, which ruled it out the moment its climate-change denying backbenchers objected.
So now, we're told, Finkel has come up with a compromise, a "low emissions target", or LET, which sets the proportion of electricity production that must come from low-emission sources.
It's similar to the present RET – renewable energy target – except the list of low-emission sources would be expanded to include gas-fired power and "clean" coal-fired power with carbon capture and storage (should such a thing ever exist).
This compromise has been widely canvassed, and has a lot of support in business. Even the Labor opposition has indicated its willingness to accept some form of mechanism rather than continuing inaction.
The heat will now be on Turnbull to get his Trumpettes across the line.
