Commentators here in America called President Trump’s (sweet Jesus, does that sound good) inauguration speech ‘dark’, proving again their own mental incontinence. Of course it was dark! For the 99.99 per cent of Americans who’ve never been to an Academy Awards after-party, America is a dark place. I’m coming to believe the Fourth Estate actually believes the utter crap it talks. They really think Trump’s banging-on about terrorism and immigration and outsourcing is overblown. They think everyone’s as safe, prosperous, and contented as they are. ‘His little hoax has paid off,’ they seem to say; ‘now it’s time for him to come clean. He must admit that Islam is the religion of peace, illegal immigration is good for the country, and Americans have blue-collar jobs enough to share with China.’ No doubt he’ll find the White House toilet smells distinctly of roses, too, with compliments to President Obama.

The rest of us know that Trump’s job isn’t to get our spirits up. That’s not why we hired him to run our country. And his speech reflected that. It wasn’t comforting, but it did lay out a way forward. Unemployment? ‘We will get our people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.’ Race relations? ‘When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.’ Bitter partisanship? ‘A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions.’ It was a beautiful speech, made more beautiful by its delivery. Every soaring turn of phrase was delivered so matter-of-factly, as if to say, ‘… and if you think I’m blowing smoke, just you wait.’

But the new administration already has a new item on its to-do list: far-left domestic terrorism. The string of riots and cop-killings orchestrated by #BlackLivesMatter last year are becoming mainstream. D.C. looked like a warzone on Inauguration Day. The anti-fascists took a page from the Brownshirts’ handbook and destroyed private businesses, smashing windows with bats and hammers. They set fire to cars and trash barrels, and savagely beat everyone that tried to put them out. And while it’d be bad enough if the violence merely persists, what if it escalates? What if the demonstrators don’t tucker themselves out and go back to their parents’ basements for a nap? It’s possible that America has a Baader-Meinhof on her hands.

Quite naturally, the best analysis of this phenomenon has come from Spectator circles. Ed West wrote a fascinating piece for Mummy reminding us that ‘we easily forget how unnatural it is to tolerate worldviews and opinions we strongly disagree with’. The anti-Trump demonstrators, he explains, ‘have grown up with everything being a consumer experience in which their whims are catered for.’ Having their gratification refused (or at least delayed) is totally foreign to their experience. So they threw a tantrum, as children are wont to do. Our own Daisy Cousens agrees: the media, entertainment industry, academia, and all mainstream culture-makers have spent years reinforcing leftist prejudices. Trump’s victory was their first taste of rejection, and they don’t know how to process it. ‘It’s only natural you’d confuse feeling offended with feeling challenged,’ she assures them; ‘you’re just not used to it.’

All of that sounds perfectly reasonable, but I have my own theory. As it happens, January 21st was the anniversary of Louis XVI’s martyrdom at the hands of the Jacobins. We should take this occasion to remember two historic facts about the Left. Firstly, the mob is its original and purest form. That’s when you glimpse its real character. And, secondly, that mob will always be given to demagoguery and intimidation – anything to achieve its utopia. There’s a petite Robespierre sleeping in the heart of every progressive, waiting to storm the nearest Bastille and decapitate whatever king is at hand. They’ll gag you in the name of free speech, thrash you senseless in the name of tolerance, and overturn elections in the name of democracy – just as they have for hundreds of years.

Oh well. It was a happy day, for Oz as well as America. You no doubt saw that someone paid four thousand smackers to have ‘TRUMP’ sky-written over Sydney. Those were my alt-right mates – the same ones that were booted from USyd’s election party. #DingoTwitter, as they’re now known. (I remember the good old days, when they were just a bunch of disillusioned Young Libs drinking VB and belting out the Kaiserhymne on the streets of Newtown.) These blokes trolled the Sydney Women’s March – that vaunted procession of gender-bending arts students, unemployed lesbians, and dowdy housewives. The new regime in Washington should just be thankful the Dingoes have its back.

My apologies that this report isn’t coming to you from D.C., by the way. I was going to tag along with some old college buddies – a mix of donors and RNC delegates – but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. The District’s a hellhole in the offseason. I saw enough of it during the 2012 election cycle to steer clear this time around. God, was that dumb. Turns out the boys were all over the Inaugural Ball. They looked to be about five rows back when the newly-minted POTUS took the stage, the photos they posted on Facebook were so clear you can see the duct tape holding Trump’s belt together. Good old Yankee thrift, eh? We sure could use more of it.