13 November 2024

ALAN HAYES

 

WHEN last in power, Trump spruiked that he would be a dictator – now he has his wish.

 

Donald Trump’s return to the White House, has left allies like Australia — and rivals like China — wondering what might be coming next. He is unpredictable, irrational, unconventional and extremely dangerous, which is why it is untenable for Australia to lock-step with a militarised US government led by an unstable president.

 

Marcus Strom from lobby group Labor Against War, which has long campaigned against AUKUS, and who have called upon our government to dump the American submarine deal, said, "Being part of a heavily integrated military alliance with a Trump presidency is dangerous, expensive and counter to the interests of the Australian people."

 

The Greens largely agree with Marcus Storm’s comments, with senator Sarah Hanson-Young arguing now is the time to rethink the submarine deal.

 

In his previous presidency, even Donald Trump’s defence secretary, James Mattis described him as a ‘Madman in a circular room screaming’ – staying away and shunning him, as humanly possible. So, this time around, will the ‘madman’ behave differently? Unlikely!

 

Trump has given some strong indications of his plans for the next four years, particularly in areas such as trade and climate policy – high import tariffs on China and bailing out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

 

Trump is a big fan of tariffs. They were a feature of his first term in office and they look set to be at the centre of his second term, including potentially ripping up Biden-era pacts. A resurrected Donald Trump administration has promised to make sweeping changes that will reposition and protect US interests and, if enacted, will have significant flow-on effects in Australia.

 

He has floated ideas like a broad 10 to 20 per cent tariff on most imports bound for the United States, and hitting China in particular with tariffs of up to 60 per cent.

 

Ninety-six per cent of Australia's imports to the US are currently tariff-free, under a 20-year-old free trade deal, but this could quickly change from Trump’s lack of understanding of anything except Trump – even his personal understanding of himself is up for serious debate.

 

The problem now facing Australia could be the significant hit to the global economy if Trump’s new tariffs spark a trade war. Former US ambassador Arthur Sinodinos warned that, as a trading nation, Australia would have little hope of avoiding being caught in the crossfire.

 

Trump's dealings with China could also make things tricky for Australia, in particular the way in which Trump handles relations with China more broadly. It was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic that Trump has a bitter hatred for China.

 

There is also little doubt that Trump is anti-climate change and an environmental vandal and has been very clear about his plans on climate policy — by and large, this 'vehement climate crisis denier' wants the US out of anything to do with reducing fossil fuel emissions.

 

His administration will likely again seek to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, only a few years after the Biden administration reversed Trump's first withdrawal.

 

But Trump may go further this time, withdrawing the US from the United Nation's broader efforts to combat climate change by withdrawing the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty.

 

The 1992 treaty is the foundation for international climate talks. A withdrawal from that treaty would make it nearly impossible for a future administration to re-enter the UNFCCC treaty because doing so would require the consent of two-thirds of the Senate.

 

The reverberation of such a step would be felt around the world.

 

Such a withdrawal will be a problem for the Albanese Government, who has sought to make relations on climate and clean energy the 'third pillar' of the Australia-United States relationship - it is now on very shaky ground.

 

And as the ‘environment-vandal's’ administration seeks to unwind government support for many renewables, particularly the wind industry, Trump will be scaling up the United State’s production of oil and gas.

 

And on some big questions of foreign policy, such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, his positions are well known. There are strong reservations within Republican ranks about US funding and military support for Ukraine's war effort. Trump has criticised the scale of US military and financial support for Ukraine and has pledged to end the war with Russia quickly – without saying how.

 

To even the playing field, however, President Joe Biden plans to rush billions of dollars in security assistance to Ukraine before he leaves office in January, reports say, hoping to shore up the government in Kyiv before Donald Trump returns to the White House. But withdrawal of US support, when Trump takes office, could see growing pressure on Australia to step up its own efforts.

 

However, Trump abandoning continuing support for the Ukraine war is in stark contrast with the Israeli war and his ongoing position with that war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has spoken three times with Donald Trump since the election and they “see eye-to-eye regarding the Iranian threat and all of its components.”

 

According to Fiona Hill, an adviser on Russia to George W Bush, Barack Obama and Trump, the president elect is a man who manipulated the masses by tapping into their grievances and appealed to their worst instincts "instead of their better angels", who "presided over an insurrection", polarised the political system and is “incredibly flawed”. She believes a second pro-Putin term would be a disaster for Ukraine in particular and western security generally, in terms of an increased nuclear threat and the encouragement of Putin’s disregard for European borders.

 

Yet, as the world waits on tender-hooks, it is well-known that Trump’s megalomaniacal character will almost guarantee four years of payback and revenge – not discounting the fact that he’ll pardon himself from his previous criminal behaviour. He knows that he is protected by the ruling his conservative-stuffed supreme court handed down during his first term - the president of the United States has immunity from criminal prosecution?.

 

The rise of the extreme far-right

 

Trumpism, in all its power-crazy, self-important and despotic behaviour, is now here and part of life for the entire world to endure. A sausage-fuelled-smugness that was designed to fool the masses to elect a racist, with deep ties to fascism, and a convicted criminal who tried to steal the previous election. And tagging along in the glow of Trumpism, was the deep-eyed running mate, Vance - a conduit for the most despicable thinking on offer from the hyper-networked international far-right.

 

Trump has been abundantly clear about his plans - turn the military on his opponents, trash climate action, deport millions of migrants, and strip women of sovereignty over their bodies.

 

But Trump’s victory was bound to happen. Why? Because he focused on those middle-Americans, just over sixty percent of whom have no more than a sixth grade education, and sold them a ‘bill-of-goods’ – migration and inflation that was deeply-rooted in his own despicable beliefs.

 

He was reported as saying that his political opponents were "vermin" and saying illegal immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" – echoing language that Hitler used to describe his enemies.

 

"It's true,” Trump said at an Iowa rally, when referring to immigrants, “They're destroying the blood of the country, they're destroying the fabric of our country, and we're going to have to get them out."

 

Trump was also reported as saying on PBS News, Hitler “did some good things” and that he wanted generals like the Nazis.

 

Yet despite Trump not being able to make ‘America great again’ – the slogan and promise that lead him to victory the first time around – the middle-class lapped up the same rhetoric again. Sadly, they believed the lies and accepted the verbal poison and hatred – delusional over a better existence for themselves.

 

Delusion amplified by a young and ignorant American male rejoicing in the after-glow of Trump’s victory: “He must be the most popular man in the world,” he said on television. And that’s the problem – most Americans believe that the world is America. They were prepared to accept the promise of always a better tomorrow – the same promise that resounded loud and clear in 1930s Germany at the expense of humanity.

 

Trumpism in Australia

 

To mainstream progressives, Trump’s support was unthinkable – a problem that Anthony Albanese will need to think long and deep about if he wants to secure another term in office. Why? Because moral outrage does little or nothing to understand the psychology of what will drive people to embrace  a Trumpian world view.

 

The problem that we, as a country, also face are the same issues of inflation and immigration – fuelling unacceptable ill will for others and anger that leads to unimaginable decisions that will stop a person’s moral clock.

 

Trump’s election as US president is, without any doubt, an overwhelming reminder of humanity’s unknowability toward each other. It’s a ticking timebomb as Australia heads toward a 2025 election.

 

But do we, as a nation, want to embrace the extremes of living in a far-right Trumpist-type society? Nuclear-man Dutton, if by some slim change was asleep at the wheel and already didn’t know it, Trump’s victory was a clear indication that migration and inflation – and the links between them – would be a clear pathway for him to snatch power in Australia; his narrative is almost writing itself.

 

How Dutton would solve migration and inflation is unclear but selling the idea to Australians, who are feeling the financial pinch, is electorally potent – people don’t need to understand how, they just need to be sold a plausible promise, whether it’s achievable or not. And Trump’s victory only confirmed the power of such a promise, backed up by Dutton's popularity polling! A new poll published in The Australian shows the Opposition Leader leading the Prime Minister on net voter approval for the first time since Labor won the 2022 election. The poll shows the Coalition holding its lead against Labor on a two-party preferred basis — 51 per cent to 49 per cent — after it overtook the Government for the first time since 2022 in the last poll.

 

There would be little doubt that ‘Nuclear Man’ Dutton is salivating over the polling and the main factors that gave Trump his victory - taking heart that he now has a real chance to consign Labor to one-term at next year’s election. Yet a nuclear Australia cannot be glossed over or just simply denied as he focuses on the heart-strings of voters.

 

A heart-string vote could well be the turning point for Dutton, especially in light of the recent decision of the High Court accepting the arguments of refugee advocates that around 150 foreign-born convicted criminals, including scores of sex offenders who can’t currently be deported, can’t be subject to monitoring and curfews. The decision reignites the controversy around criminals freed by the High Court in its NZYQ decision, which the government badly bungled in 2023.

 

So, while Dutton dreams of accepting the mantle of Prime Minister, what is Albanese doing to assure his chances of another victory? Albanese hopes fears about Dutton will turn voters to Labor – but after Trump’s win, he shouldn’t count on it. Why? Because Trump’s comeback triumph says something about the fickle role that character plays in modern politics.

 

For the Albanese Government, the burning question is whether the fear of what a Dutton Government would do is enough to dissuade Australian voters from choosing the same course. After the election of a lunatic back into the White House, leaning too hard on that assumption could well see ‘Nuclear Man’ polishing his uranium crown.

 

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