Opinion
Brace for impact Australia, we’re about to be Trumped again
David Crowe
Chief political correspondentThere were no headlines about Joe Biden’s health when the US president greeted Anthony Albanese after the prime minister took office two years ago. Biden combined good humour and an admirable energy when he welcomed Albanese to the Quad summit in Tokyo alongside leaders from India and Japan, just three days after Australians had cast their votes in the May 2022 election.
“You got sworn in, you got on a plane and if you fall asleep while you’re here, it’s OK,” Biden quipped at the start of their talks. Albanese had left Australia on the Monday morning after the election, hours after being sworn in at Government House.
Illustration: Simon LetchCredit:
Biden used comedy as a form of diplomacy to make Albanese feel at ease while they sat in a formal meeting in front of dozens of reporters, photographers and camera operators. When Albanese told Biden about a trip to America in which he had visited the National Rifle Association, the president rose quickly from his chair in mock horror and pretended to leave the meeting. Albanese burst out laughing, as did others in the room, before Biden reached out to shake his hand.
How things have changed. The jokes about sleep are now being made at the president’s expense since he told Democrats he needed to stop doing events after 8pm. American comedian Jimmy Fallon says Vice President Kamala Harris will have to become the “night president” because Biden can only do the day shift. When Americans complain about the summer heat, Fallon says, they’re as sweaty as a bunch of Democrats watching Biden walk onto a podium.
The merciless political humour of late-night television, part of American culture for decades, can be more revealing than the predictions from Washington DC insiders about this turning point in the presidential contest. The message is that Americans are giving up on Biden. The talk has shifted from concern about his health to black humour about his defeat.
So Australia has to prepare for the return of Donald Trump. Without a dramatic intervention by the Democrats, the second Trump presidency begins in January.
The fateful decision of the Democrats to anoint Biden as their candidate in March will reverberate across the world unless there is a miraculous rescue mission to replace him with a candidate who goes on to win the November 5 election.
The sense of alarm about a Trump victory is sobering. While Australians may feel safely distant from the US capital, there is no reason to think we can ride out a second Trump presidency as we did the first one. The greatest upheaval last time came from Trump’s attempts to impose tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium exports. The next time could see Trump inject dangerous volatility into relations with China, sell Ukraine out to Russian President Vladimir Putin, impose even tougher trade sanctions on allies and attempt to change the terms of the AUKUS pact, with lasting consequences for Australian defence.
Who can predict what Trump might do? The man who backed the January 6 insurrection could do anything if returned to power.
One commentator, Thomas Friedman, calls this year’s election a form of Russian roulette with democracy. “One of the biggest mistakes Americans would be making if they were to elect Trump again is assuming that because we survived four years of his norm-busting, law-abusing, ally-alienating behaviour once, we can skate by again without irreparable damage,” he wrote on Tuesday.
Paul Krugman, the Nobel-winning economist, expects the worst. “If Trump wins, it may be the last real election — that is, an election in which the party currently holding power allows its opponents to take that power away — America will hold for a long time,” Krugman wrote on Monday. “If you think that’s hyperbole, after Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, you haven’t been paying attention.”
American democracy, once vibrant, looks moribund. Trump, 78, is a convicted felon who dominates the Republicans. Biden, 81, is too old for the job but stares down the Democrats. There is no way in the American system to force the presidential nominee out of the race at this point. Biden, for instance, would have to agree to step down and release the delegates he secured in March so they could choose a different nominee.
The Democrats, with 116 days until the election, could only dream of following the brutal example of the Australian Labor Party in the way it dispatched Bill Hayden and installed Bob Hawke as leader on February 8, 1983. Hawke won the election 26 days later. The American system is simply unable to move so fast.
Cold logic says Biden should make way for a younger candidate. He will not improve with age; his stumbles can only get worse. The rational decision is to engineer a total shift in the presidential race with an energetic Democrat who can turn the attack on Trump for being too old, incoherent and unstable. In delaying this decision, Biden perhaps ensures that Harris is the only option.
Joe Biden and Anthony Albanese at the White House in October 2023.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The current signs are that Trump will win – and Australian leaders will have to scramble to adjust. A Trump presidency will be a severe challenge for Albanese, who is naturally a greater friend of the Democrats. Albanese once called January 6 a “brutal assault on American democracy” and would have to smooth over his differences with Trump on abortion and gun control.
Would it be any easier for Peter Dutton as prime minister? Trump prefers social conservatives, but he also has a history of turning on allies and demanding they do more on defence. He could easily want more spending by Australia, and fewer commitments from the US, on the transfer of nuclear technology or the sale of nuclear-powered submarines.
Congress is divided and often dysfunctional, making it challenging for any Australian leader to be sure of where they stand.
On his visit to Washington DC this week, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles spoke to legislators from both sides, such as Republican senator Dan Sullivan and Democrat congressman Joe Courtney. In his visit last October, Albanese gained one of the first meetings with the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a Trump supporter. Labor ministers have been doing everything they can to open doors with Republicans.
Bruce Wolpe, who worked for the Democrats in Congress before becoming chief of staff to Julia Gillard as prime minister, says Australians will have to befriend the Trump camp. “Don’t project fear,” he says. “Project friendship.” Wolpe has grave doubts about the Democrat campaign.
Australian security policy has been set for years on the comfortable assumption that America is a reliable ally. This was central to AUKUS and the great dream of a new submarine fleet that could protect Australia for most of this century, and the core assumption was made to look totally safe when Biden joked with Albanese in Tokyo two years ago.
It does not look so safe this year. Australia has to prepare for the volatile future of a second Trump presidency. Brace for impact.
David Crowe is chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
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