Kevin, take it from a former ambassador: Trump doesn't care what you think

After Donald Trump's resounding victory there was a flurry of commentary about Kevin Rudd, our ambassador in the US, and his very public and disparaging views about the President-elect.

The unusual assortment of people making the point, in Rudd's favour, that we ought not let other countries decide who we will send as ambassadors are absolutely right to do so.

We send our representative, we choose.

Some have chosen to criticise Anthony Albanese for the appointment in the first place.

Rudd has been a long-term friend of the Prime Minister. His appointment was a captain's pick.

For an ambassador to one of our most trusted allies, that is potentially advantageous. Complete trust between ambassador and PM could be a very good thing, especially in a crisis.

But if the bromance clouded Albo's judgment, it's a bad thing.

Let's face it, who knows better than a mate if you're regarded by some as a complete tosser know-it-all, if you can bore people witless with the recitation of your views and if you have a penchant for self-importance.

Some might say that's a fair description of Rudd. Albo would have known all that and either doesn't believe it, or took the chance it didn't matter. By all accounts of people close to Washington, Rudd must have kept some of his less-attractive qualities under wraps to build a network of contacts.

So maybe Albo was right, Rudd's lesser qualities may have done no harm. Still, if there are people who've had their eyeballs so fried by his presence that they'd hide in a toilet to avoid meeting again with Rudd they are at least remaining diplomatically silent. Something Rudd should have done, but didn't.

Albo would have known about Rudd's publicly expressed views on Trump.

He made the same error the Democrats in the US made; he wrongly assumed Trump would not win. Albo forgot the best question you can ask yourself: "What if I'm wrong?".

Having not done that, he should have at very least, out of an abundance of caution, insisted the remarks were deleted before Rudd's appointment went ahead.

Not doing so was a risk Albo didn't need to take.

None of that is the real issue. The real issue is Rudd's judgement. Making the remarks publicly in the first place was stupid, but he has no monopoly on that.

Rudd is not the only person with a few brains who didn't have enough insight to see that sharing his view publicly about another politician was neither smart nor, more importantly, relevant to anyone.

Let's face it, there are plenty of people who either didn't think at all or perhaps worse, thought the world would be a better place if their personal assessment of Donald Trump was shared.

It takes a certain ego to come to that conclusion. Or stupidity. What on earth does publicly sharing your negative personal assessment achieve?

Frankly, nothing more than you stroking your ego by assuming the world is waiting with bated breath for your condemnation of someone. Sure, your special insight has been gained from only a few meetings but hey, you're a pretty smart person. And self-indulgent. Kevin is not alone.

Usually these sorts of comments are not so much personality assessments as they are disparaging sledges.

They reveal as much, maybe more, about the personality and ego of the the sledger. Far too many people at all levels of society now behave as though politics is more about personality than policy.

Personality politics is for lazy people. Condemning or praising a person with expletives or generalities is so much easier than making the effort to understand their policy perspective and thrash it out with other policy wonks.

To be fair, Trump also dishes out his frank assessments of people so it may be a goose-and-gander, peas-in-a-pod sort of thing.

Rudd's judgement is revealed in a number of his decisions. Making the remarks in the first place, leaving them up when he was appointed to the post and when the chance of Trump winning became clear were all stupid decisions. To compound that self-indulgent stupidity, he engaged in a ridiculous hair-splitting climb down after Trump's victory. All of that tells us a fair bit about Rudd.

First, he did not see Trump's win coming. He was incapable of assessing the mood of the people in the country to which he is our ambassador. The federal government clearly cannot rely on his assessment of what Americans think.

If you're lucky enough to have read Michael Fullilove's fabulous book Rendezvous with Destiny you will recall that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in deciding whether send troops to Europe in WWII, sent five personal emissaries to be his eyes and ears.

He specifically instructed them to not only learn what ministers, public servants and the UK royal family thought, but to learn what the British people thought. Were they up for the ugly fight ahead?

Roosevelt knew that listening solely to the bubble of those we now call the elites was a mistake. He knew the people were paramount. Rudd would have been no help to Roosevelt.

Having made those errors of judgement and Trump having won, Rudd appears to have decided that he should stay on.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but when something you've done causes public embarrassment or controversy or risks making you less effective in your work, the appropriate next step is usually for you to try and fix the problem.

In Rudd's case, why didn't he show some concern for first whether Australia would be better off if he chose to come home and second, whether coming home quietly would help the mate who gave him the opportunity in the first place?

He's presumably decided his desire to enjoy Washington is paramount, that his skills are so good the benefits of him staying outweigh the possible detriment, or that nobody gives a rats about his views.

Certainly one has to doubt that Trump would care.

It seems unlikely that he would let what a former PM, now ambassador, said about him derail his thinking on anything.

Trump appears very transactional. He focuses on the outcome he wants to achieve on the issue at hand.

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What someone, now way down the chain of command, said about him a few months ago is unlikely to be high if anywhere on his agenda.

For anyone to imagine that Rudd's personality, thoughts or views would have any impact on Trump's handling of anything substantive is a joke. He'd be lucky to be considered a mozzie in the room.

Sure Trump, his staff and general coterie may leave Rudd out of the odd dinner or meeting just to amuse themselves or make a point.

They will, however, be focusing on what is in their best interests rather than some petty remarks made by a guy they don't like much anyway. Their focus will be transactional and outcomes based.

Trump will make decisions that might affect us on the basis of what is in America's best interest. Who our happens to be our ambassador just won't count.