To be fair, Kevin Rudd has been called far worse, and by his own side of politics. So when Donald Trump was lured into insulting Rudd by that noted investigative journalist Nigel Farage, plenty of commentators shrugged their shoulders.

To recap: Farage, Brexiteer-turned-broadcaster, secured Trump for an interview on his primetime show for GB News, a right-leaning British TV channel, on Tuesday. He openly admitted his questions about Rudd – now Australia’s US ambassador – were supplied by his friends at Sky News Australia.

Image: Nathan Perri.Credit:

Certainly, the topic of Rudd can’t have been of great interest to his British audience. It was unclear whether Trump even knew who Rudd was, but Farage helpfully supplied excerpts from the former PM’s back-catalogue of commentary.

Rudd had called the former US president “nuts” and “a traitor to the West”, as well as “the most destructive president in history”. (Comments that many, if not most, Australians would agree with.) Trump took the bait – firing back at Rudd, saying he was “nasty” and “not the brightest bulb”. Most worryingly, he said that if Rudd was hostile, he wouldn’t be in his post long.

To be clear, Trump was threatening to cancel the sovereign choice of the Australian government (on behalf of the Australian people); the representative of a country that is generally considered to be America’s greatest ally, along with Britain. It was another example of Trump smashing convention and being rewarded with attention – his favourite form of narcissistic supply.

The consensus was that it was just Trump being Trump – shooting off at the mouth, attacking with ferocity anyone who attacks or challenges him. This is true, but it is still worth noting how extraordinary it is that we have come to accept such behaviour as ordinary.

We’ve become used to it. Trump can be relied upon to verbally attack others in the nastiest possible terms. He has mocked a disabled reporter. He has taken to mocking President Joe Biden’s stutter.

His comments on women, from politicians to models (“birdbrain”, “horseface”, “dog”, “crazed, crying lowlife”, “bleeding badly from a facelift”, “nasty woman”, “no longer a 10”, “fat ass”) are horrendous. But his misogynistic invective has become so normalised it barely rates a mention anymore.