Read an extract from Trump's Australia by Bruce Wolpe.
Read a section of Trump's Australia by Bruce Wolpe. Australia's best-informed commentator on US politics provides a blueprint for Australia for Trump's second term.
What Trump’s re-election means for the US, and for Australia
Since the 2020 election, what has been exposed is not simply Trump’s plot to overturn the election result, but a comprehensive campaign, focused on the state and local levels in key swing states, to alter the election mechanisms to change who counts the votes in these states, and who has the power to certify the votes in those states. In addition, nineteen states passed laws to make it harder—not easier—to vote, disadvantaging voters who are poorer and voters of colour from enjoying equitable access to the polls.
As Trump continued to dominate the Republican Party and its legislative agenda in Congress, the passage of legislation supported by President Biden and Democrats to strengthen voting rights was systematically blocked.
Trump’s success in shifting the balance of the Supreme Court through the appointment of three staunch conservatives during his term has sharply constricted the rights of women to access abortion and greatly expanded the rights of Americans to obtain guns.
Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election on 15 November 2022. In his announcement he spoke of a return to glory in America:
But just as I promised in 2016, I am your voice. I am your voice. The Washington establishment wants to silence us, but we will not let them do that. What we have built together over the past six years is the greatest movement in history because it is not about politics. It’s about our love for this great country, America. And we’re not going to let it fail. I am running because I believe the world has not yet seen the true glory of what this nation can be.
He will come to office to wreak vengeance on his enemies, especially in Congress. His administration will be filled with Trump First loyalists; he will have no need to deal with well-intentioned establishment Republicans who want to curb his excesses. There will be no effective guardrails on a second Trump presidency.
After being in office for four years, he will know exactly how to execute what he wants to accomplish—without interference from anyone.
As part of a larger projection of what Trump back in power would look like, assembled by Thomas Edsall of the New York Times, Stanford professor Cécile Alduy wrote that the Republican agenda under Trump redux ‘would be fueled by increased moral panic about white America’s decline, a professed sense of having been spoliated and “stolen the election” and a renewed sentiment of impunity for his most extreme backers from the Jan. 6 insurrection. My bet is that there is an active plan to reshape the political system so that elections are not winnable by Democrats, and the state be run without the foundation of a democracy.’
In other words, American democracy as we have known it will come to an end.
A Trump resurgence will be met with fear and loathing in Australia. It will call into question Australia’s alliance with the United States, as reflected in the historic ANZUS treaty, now over seventy years old, and what Australia does with it. Australia loves America, but can we love a divided America under Trump?
The consequences for Australia, given the bedrock alliance between the two countries, and two democracies, are as incalculable as they are immense.
If Trump destroys America’s democracy, does that pose an existential threat to Australia’s alliance with the United States? What should Australia do to protect its future?
In my book Trump’s Australia, Part I turns to Trump’s foreign policy and Australia, including discussions of China, the Australia–US–UK alliance to counter-balance China in the Indo–Pacific, North Korea, and related issues.
Part II turns to Australia’s domestic policy settings on the economy, trade, and climate, and how Trump policies affect the debate on those issues here.
Part III explores the future of democracy in Australia and the United States in the context of Trump’s shaping of the political culture in both countries. I focus on how elections in both countries are conducted, racial issues, the media, and the emergence of Trumpism.
Part IV turns to the key safeguards of democracy in Australia, including mandatory voting, the Westminster system, and how some critical institutions here are insulated to a degree from political pressure.
Trump’s Australia explores what Australia needs to do to maintain and strengthen its democracy and political culture in the face of its most important ally’s retreat from democracy. What trends in the United States will affect us here if Trump returns to power in 2024? What Trumpist themes are seeding foreign and domestic policy issues and Australia’s political culture? And what guardrails in policy and politics need to be erected or reinforced to withstand and protect Australia’s society and way of life from a second Trump presidency?
Extracted from Trump's Australia by Bruce Wolpe.
Trump's Australia
by Bruce Wolpe
How Trumpism changed Australia and the shocking consequences for us of a second term.
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