Can a Trump-like figure arise in the ACT?

Of course we see now that a lot of that rapture was surely sheer relief that the people of the ACT had yet to be infected by the populist nastiness that has infected brexiteering Britons. That same nastiness, we'd noticed, in the United States was lubricating Donald Trump's rattlesnake-like slither into the hearts and minds of Americans.

It may be that the same sort of raging, resentful monster is growing out there somewhere in the ACT. Perhaps it is slowly awaking among the ill-educated working classes in those far-flung suburbs with strange-sounding names (Moncrieff! Kinlyside! Coombs!) that the ACT's tertiary-educated, inner-Canberra dwelling ruling classes never visit.

Perhaps by the time of the next election the more Trump-like forces in ACT politics will have found a way of appealing to that monster's appetites, if that monster does exist.

Perhaps the ACT Liberals' obscene efforts at the last election to exploit any populist fury over light rail was a kind of Trumped-up attempt to woo the worst, most angry, most ignorant voters? Perhaps, by the next ACT elections, our most Trump-like ACT Liberals will have polished their populist arts and will do much better. Or, can it be that the ACT, this little piece of Heaven, will remain so blessed by high levels of education and of fulfilling employment that populist rage will never take root here?

Meanwhile, speaking of the most Trump-like of Australians, controversy over Section 18C continues to seethe.

So many of the conservative, white champions of reform of what they mock as the "hurt feelings" provisions of Section 18C come across as insensitive, brick-built brutes. Perhaps, cushioned against social and racial pain by privilege and by pale complexions, they have few feelings to be easily hurt.

Conservatives like Andrew Bolt and the Shock Jocks(what a great name that would be for a band!) and the Turnbull government's backbench toughs are demanding reform of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. They, the toughs from this basket of deplorables, say that 18C's protection of folk from declarations "likely ... to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" is a restraint on the freedom of speech we all ought to enjoy in this knockabout democracy.

The toughs, the deplorables are making a great deal more of this than many of us can quite understand. Why is it an issue for them? All of this has thinking Australians, this column's core clientele, asking what it is in Australian life that ever offends and insults them, personally.

I am struggling to think of a 2016 occasion on which anything said or done to me or around me has given me face-ashening offence. But perhaps my pleasing Anglo-Saxon complexion puts me out of reach of most racial unpleasantness. Then, my atheism means that there is nothing anyone can say about my beliefs that ever sounds blasphemous to my ears.

Then, too, it may be that Canberra life is so bland and fortunate that most of us are cushioned against most of the things that, in the wilder world, truly offend, insult and intimidate.

You get a glimpse of how little real, true offence is given in everyday Canberra life by the pettiness of the things that cranky Canberrans claim they are offended by.

Just as this columnist likes to single out Canberra's FWWs (First World Whingers) for special treatment there are Canberra's FWOs (the First World Offended) who get up heads of steam about matters that are teeny-weeny in the great scheme of things. Canberra's FWOs are over-represented in the letters to the editor pages of The Canberra Times. These FWOs are left aghast by the sight of some graffiti, by the spectacle of some unmown grass in a park, by pieces of public art that leave them gnashing their dentures.

And, inevitably, Canberra's FWOs took offence at the sweet corflutes (election posters) that during the election campaign sprang up, like gorgeous wildflowers, along our highways.

Elections ACT's Electoral Commissioner Phil Green has revealed that offensively untidy corflutes were a major source of complaints to the commission during the campaign.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr, leaping to placate these miserabilists (when instead he should have told them they were just petty-minded FWOs and a disgrace to our city) said he agreed with them.

The Canberra Times reported that "He [Barr] said said that Canberra had reached such a state of 'peak corflute' that the prime minister of Singapore had commented on the number of signs while in Canberra during the election campaign and offered a practical tip. He suggested the ACT could follow Singapore's lead in limiting the number of signs ... handing out authorisation stickers which candidates must place on the signs. Mr Barr's office said he was considering the move."

I am offended by the idea that oppressively regulated and sickeningly spick and span Singapore should ever be thought a corfluting role model for our dear, ragamuffin city. But I am only mildly offended and, for I am no FWO, certainly won't be writing to The Canberra Times about it.