The soul searching for answers over how a politician like Donald Trump could ascend to President of the United States began in earnest yesterday amongst Australian politicians and the commentariat.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull responded to Trump’s win as a warning shot to politicians that they must govern for everybody and leave no voter behind in times of rapid economic change (read globalisation):
“The change is seen to be inclusive, that is to say no sectors or communities or regions should be allowed to be left behind”…
Meanwhile, Turnbull himself must be feeling under threat as conservative elements within the Coalition are buoyed by both Brexit and Trump, as noted by Fairfax’s Mark Kenny:
Australian populist-conservatives or “popcons”, are suddenly enlivened, preaching a new universal truth with the certainty of someone who’s just been tipped off about the second coming.
The promised land is tantalisingly close.
For Cory Bernardi, Eric Abetz, George Christensen, and Pauline Hanson, there are clear antipodean applications from Donald Trump’s successful animation of Budweiser-Democrats – or what the conservative intellectual Tom Switzer recently called Trump’s blue-collar base of angry-white-males. Similarly unmistakable is the warning for quisling moderates.
Popcon glee over Brexit which, it turns out, was merely the entree, has reached eleven. Trump’s extraordinary triumph was sweet vindication – the inevitable corollary of a long-denied outsider grievance against political correctness and the stultifying diktat of cultural elites.
But for Malcolm Turnbull, struggling with an unimaginative program, a wafer-thin majority, poor polls and a resentful right wing, the Trump fillip for hardliners spells danger.
Waleed Aly penned a salient piece arguing that the rise of Trump is not about racism or sexism, but about class warfare. The middle-class has been hollowed-out and they feel angry and unrepresented by the establishment [my emphasis]:
Trump did better with black voters than Mitt Romney did in 2012. He did better with Latinos, too. In the end, he won the vote of white women handily, despite the parade of them who came out in recent months to accuse him of violating them. And that, right there, is the reason for the disbelief. Trump was so repugnant because he violated our sense of identity politics.
Suspicious of free trade, disparaging of corporate behemoths, preaching that big money is screwing the little guy, thoroughly anti-globalisation. And it’s this message – this deeply radical message that has nothing to do with what America has been since at least Ronald Reagan – that has made a Trump administration possible…
Trump won this in the white working class states Democrats usually take for granted, some of which they haven’t lost for years… Trump smashed through it. And he did it with a politics of class…
For some 30 years… it’s been a thoroughly liberal politics: free, open, unbounded lives in a free, open, unbounded economy… But none of them has benefited working class whites who have seen no expansion of their rights and no appreciable economic payoff, either. What they’ve seen is the empowerment of everyone else, including other white people.
…progressives have treated the working class largely as a source of xenophobia, which they are pledged to fight…
Class is back in politics. We ignore it at our peril. And our almost determined blindness to it is exactly why we’re standing here in disbelief now.
Similarly, Monash University political science lecturer, Dr Matthew Laing, argues that the rise of Trump is a huge wake-up call to Australia’s mainstream political parties who could face their own Trump moment within a decade:
“I think it’s a warning sign to the major parties that unless they get their act together we could be in Trump land in 10 years,” he told AAP on Thursday.
“We ignored Brexit, we thought it was an aberration. Trump proves that it’s not, that it’s there, the wave is on.
“Australia cannot assume that it’s going to be insulated from it. We think we have a progressive coalition all sorted out and it couldn’t happen here, but I’m sure it definitely could.”
As I noted yesterday, the growing appeal of Pauline Hanson is that she understands these forces. And while she might not have the answers or policies to match, voters at least see her as someone that is listening to their concerns.
Now compare Ms Hanson to Australia’s three mainstream political parties who have each hitched their wagon in some way to the globalists, the wealthy elites, or the social justice warriors. In each case, the interests of ordinary working class Australians have been kicked to the curb.
These forgotten people are being told to suck it up or simply get a better job when they cannot afford a home.
They are being told that free trade is good for them, despite the hollowing-out of Australia’s traditional industries, the casualisation of the workforce, and growing inequality.
And they are told that Australia must maintain one of the world’s highest immigration programs because it is ‘good’ for the economy and to do otherwise is ‘xenophobic’ or ‘racist’. Meanwhile, they are spending more time lost in traffic each year, cannot find a seat on a train or bus, cannot afford to buy a home, and cannot find a secure and well-paying job.
Our politicians would be wise to see Trumpism off at the pass and prioritise the needs and concerns of the incumbent resident population. This necessarily requires a moderation of Australia’s immigration program to sustainable levels, public investment in economic and social infrastructure, as well as policies that directly address the growing inequality across the population.
Whichever politician can clearly articulate a plan to address these concerns will soak-up the disenfranchised and rise to power.
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