His newsletter is boldly titled "Your Weekly Dose of Common Sense". One might read that to say: " You're so stupid you need me to point these things out to you: regularly." Apparently we're all such dumb schmucks that we need him to give us our weekly dose. Of course, if what you're saying is common sense, normal people will recognise it as such. Labelling something doesn't change its substance. Not that Bernardi understands that. Trust is probably the most important currency in politics. Followed by authenticity. On both these counts his cup doth not runneth over. He doesn't advertise it but Bernardi started off in politics as a moderately minded Liberal. Insulted that his talents weren't sufficiently recognised to be handed the safe state seat of Bragg on a plate by the moderates, he was easy pickings for the right. They gave him the recognition he wanted in the form of a Senate vacancy. He happily discarded the moderates. That raises a trust issue. He had a chance both under Abbott and Turnbull. He muffed both. If there was any bromance, it's over. He just can't see why people don't see in him what he sees. His emotional intelligence is not on the high side. When people don't recognise what he sees as his obvious talents, he discards them.

He craves recognition. He sought re-endorsement by the Liberal Party only last year. He wouldn't have had a hope in hell of being elected as an independent. (Even with his limited insight into his failings, he may well have had an uncomfortable inkling of that stark reality.) He was not so much happy as desperate to be a part of a team that would put him where he wanted to be … back in the Senate. Now, only a few months later, having got what he wants, he's discarded them. It just doesn't inspire trust. He had started seeking donations separate from Liberal Party control a long time ago. Who wouldn't like to see a full and transparent account for all that money? Without that, one can understand people thinking that there's nothing recent about the planning of this defection. If that was the case, this is how the game plan would go. Raise money outside Liberal Party control. Tick, he's done that. A nest egg when you jump ship would be sensible.

Use the Liberal Party ( the people who have given you every chance) to get back into the Senate for a six-year term. Tick. Spit in their face by jumping ship early in that term. Tick. Let's face it, you would need plenty of time to start making a name for yourself before you had to face the polls as an independent. You can't, after all, fatten a cow on the way to market. He's been in the Senate since 2006 and a decade later I'm none too sure of any achievement. To me, Bernardi is a sad case. Imagine you're a grown man in New York observing with the Australian delegation at the UN. There's any number of interesting and useful things to do. Every day. Someone is running for President of the United States and using the slogan "Make America Great Again". He wears a baseball cap emblazoned with it to ensure it gets in frame for media. You rush out, buy a red baseball cap, hunt around and find someone to put "Make Australia Great Again" across the front. And then you have pictures taken of yourself in the cap. I had a set of Mouseketeer ears when I was about seven years old. Not long after that I figured out that it is neither desirable nor prudent to copy others and play dress-ups. Best to just be yourself. High falutin', tricked-up commentators put that in a fancy way when they say that we are yearning for authenticity in politics.

Sycophantic mosh-pitting around Trump or any one else simply makes adults look vacuous. When he said of Tony Abbott that if self interest is in the race, it's the horse running hardest, I was dumbstruck. The pot and the kettle came to my mind but never entered his. My own sense is that what we see of Bernardi is a veneer. I think he wants to be something he's not, and he doesn't want to be who he really is. Not everyone is cut out to be a political leader. Amanda Vanstone is a Fairfax Media columnist.