Will Albo Kiss the Orange Ring?

Written by urbanwronski

The Scent of Submission

You smell it before the motorcade arrives; scorched democracy, synthetic turf, and the faint musk of Axe body spray. The White House lawn is immaculate, but the republic inside is fraying like a flag in a cyclone.

Trump 2.0 presides like a spray-tanned anti-Pope. He pardons the guilty, punishes the lawful, and sends troops into Democratic cities under banners of “domestic invasion.”

And into this theatre of vengeance walks Albo; earnest, deferential, bearing tribute: another billion-dollar payment to prop up U.S. submarine yards under AUKUS. It’s the diplomatic equivalent of bringing a fruit basket to a house fire.

The Zelenskyy Template

We’ve seen this play before. Trump invites the Ukrainian president to Washington, dangles long-range missiles, then tells him to “make a deal” with Russia. No Tomahawks, no guarantees — just a handshake and an all-caps Truth Social post urging both sides to “claim victory” and move on.

Zelenskyy leaves empty-handed. Trump leaves with a photo op and a future summit with Putin. Diplomacy as theatre; humiliation as lighting cue.

What Trump did to Zelenskyy; the handshake with a knife behind it; he’s about to do to Albanese. Same stage directions, different accent.

The Invoice Strategy

If Albo insists on sending something to Washington, let it be an invoice.

Billable items:

  • Pine Gap: Australia’s billion-dollar spyhole for the Five Eyes alliance — tracking missile launches, geolocating targets, feeding drone ops.
  • Submarine Yard Bailout: $1 billion in taxpayer tribute to prop up U.S. defence manufacturing.
  • Diplomatic Dignity: Every handshake with a man who pardons insurrectionists and ICEs blue states erodes it further.
  • Climate Credibility: Each grin beside a coal-stained strongman is another fingerprint on our vanishing commitments.

If the U.S. gets Pine Gap and our strategic obedience, we deserve something in return. Not Kansas. Not Alabama. Give us California. Or Oregon. Or at least Vermont — somewhere with trees, broadband, and a functioning EPA.

The Morrison–Marles Option

If Albo’s not up for it, send ScoMo. He already moonlights for Saudi Aramco and sits on a buffet of “strategic advisory” boards. He knows the choreography of fossil-fuel diplomacy.

Let him hand-deliver the invoice. Let him ask Trump to thank us for Pine Gap. Let him negotiate a gas-led recovery plan for Mar-a-Lago.

And if he needs backup, Richard Marles can tag along. He’s already outsourced our defence policy to the Pentagon. He might as well stay in Washington. Do an Elon. Move into the Lincoln Bedroom. Host a sleepover. Bring a Tesla-branded swag and a bottle of Grange.

Final Demand: Say Thank You

Before any handshake, before any submarine deal, before the photo op — Trump must say thank you.

For Pine Gap. For the intelligence. For the alliance. For the billion-dollar tribute.

If he won’t?

Play him at his own game. Leak nothing — just issue a press release:

“President Trump has graciously accepted Australia’s billion-dollar gift and agreed to withdraw ICE from California, hand over Oregon as a goodwill gesture, and personally thanked us for Vegemite and the enduring mystery of Tim Tams.”

Then, in the fine print, include a list of his family’s business contacts; purely as a courtesy. Transparency, after all, is the cornerstone of democracy.

And if that doesn’t work, send in the SAS; not to topple a regime or rescue hostages, just to bomb a few lobster boats off Maine. Call it a “supply-chain disruption exercise.” Blame a rogue GPS ping from Pine Gap.

Better yet, torch Mar-a-Lago; not with missiles, but with a memo so incendiary it ignites the curtains. Say it was a controlled burn to clear invasive AstroTurf. Call it performance art: Banksy meets Baz Luhrmann meets Defence Strategic Review.

Because in the age of orange autocracy, the only way to win is to play the game better than the king. Or better still; stay home, send the invoice, and announce a joint defence pact with Beijing.

CODA: The Invisible Throne

What nobody tells you about diplomacy in the Trump era is that the man isn’t running the show. He is the show. The lights are on, mostly, but nobody’s home.

As Robert Reich notes, Trump sits atop an org chart that looks presidential from afar but, up close, reveals a shadow theatre. The real operators — Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, J.D. Vance, run the machinery. Trump is the decoy; the incinerator of controversy.

This matters to Albo because he’s about to negotiate with a prop.

The Pyramid of Genuflection

Picture an inverted pyramid.

At the apex; the oligarchs and defence contractors who profit from AUKUS.
Below; the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 architects scripting the next administration.
Then Miller, Vought, Vance: the inner circle executing policy while Trump performs autocracy in caps lock.
Beneath them; a thousand ring-kissers whose career advancement depends on abandoning competence for obedience.

And somewhere near the base: Anthony Albanese, bearing a billion-dollar fruit basket to a house fire.

The tragedy is that Albo still thinks he’s negotiating with Trump. He’s trying to hand a cheque to a marionette.

The Miller Precedent

Stephen Miller’s second-term blueprint is simple: eliminate opposition, punish universities, sanctify grievance. Trump tweets the slogans; Miller drafts the orders.

Miller doesn’t want Australian submarines. He wants compliant satellites. He wants Pine Gap’s data stream pointed inward. He wants the machinery of state to recognise enemies rather than allies.

When Albo offers a billion-dollar shipyard upgrade, he’s bargaining with an actor reading Miller’s lines.

The Zelenskyy Lesson Revisited

Zelenskyy arrived in Washington fighting for his nation’s survival. He left with nothing.

Why? Because Trump wasn’t authorised to give anything. Miller, Vought, and Vance had already decided Ukraine should “negotiate”; code for capitulate.

Zelenskyy’s mistake was assuming the man behind the microphone had authority. Albo’s about to make the same one.

The Groveller’s Geometry

In Trumpworld, incompetence is loyalty insurance.

The further down the pyramid, the more performative the devotion. Cabinet members grovel to survive. Appointees abase to be seen. These are people who could never succeed on merit, so they substitute proximity for principle.

It’s not governance; it’s a hierarchy of hunger.

Invoice Reissued

Send the invoice anyway; but understand what it’s really for.

Not gratitude. Miller doesn’t feel that.
Not recognition. Vought only recognises assets.
Not partnership. Vance deals in leverage.

What you’re really sending is proof; a record that Australia saw through the charade. Historians will find that invoice one day and note: at least one PM tried to speak plainly while others played along.

Negotiating with Ghosts

Trump’s incompetence isn’t the core problem. It’s his utility.

The troika has learned to weaponise his chaos: feed him scripts, stage the fury, execute policy while his attention drifts to cable ratings.

For Albo, every concession; every cheque and every smile; is being assessed by people he’ll never meet, for purposes he’ll never know.

The Only Card Left: Uncertainty

What Miller, Vought, and Vance fear most is unpredictability. Their machine runs on control.

If Albo sends the invoice, suspends surveillance sharing, or pivots toward Beijing; he introduces chaos into their calculus. Even hesitation is a weapon.

Uncertainty breaks the machine, if only for a moment. Sometimes a moment is enough.

The End State

Albo will probably do what politicians do: shake the hand, pose for the cameras, return home convinced he’s secured a strategic partnership.

He hasn’t. He’s participated in a transaction with a regime that sees allies not as partners, but as assets to be extracted.

Miller wants Pine Gap. Vought wants Australian compliance. Vance wants proof that democracies can be bullied with praise and pressure.

And all it costs is a billion-dollar subsidy and a sliver of sovereignty.

The Last Word

The invoice strategy would have been the move; the one act of clarity amid the theatre of false partnership.

But that would require acknowledging what Reich laid bare: that Trump’s throne is empty, and the hands pulling strings behind it don’t negotiate. They extract.

Australia’s tragedy isn’t simply subordination to American power.

It’s subordination to American power that’s itself captive to ghosts.

Urban Wronski (aka David Tyler MA (Hons)) is a veteran independent political commentator focusing on Australian foreign policy, institutional critique, and the intersection of diplomacy and power. Recent work examines the Australian Federal Police, government accountability, and Australia’s strategic position in an era of American authoritarianism.

4 thoughts on “Will Albo Kiss the Orange Ring?”

  1. I heard a whisper that Albo has been practicing his pucker, having bought a copy of the book “How to purse your lips”, one can only hope all goes well.

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  2. What you say so eloquently David, is awesomely incisive!

    Thankyou so much for putting the truth so clearly!

    If only Albo, clearly a world class statesman, would thump Trump’s rump and declare “I’m awake up to you, you phukwit, imbecile, drongo bastard!“

    Some might say that such an utterance would be somewhat undiplomatic. I would say it’s the truth.

    But naïve and trusting Americans have at last started to rebel in mass public protests, with many more to come! They should never have allowed such an ignorant, diseased feral bulldog to make it so plain how ignorant and stupid they were.

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