Even for those of us who feared the worst about a possible second coming of Donald Trump, the pace and nature of the changes his administration is undertaking are astounding and alarming in equal measure. We can’t say we weren’t warned, though.
The Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership provided a detailed blueprint of the sorts of changes that are currently being undertaken by Trump and his unelected acolyte, Elon Musk. But even a thinktank as conservative and ideologically motivated as the Heritage Foundation must be taken aback by the damage being done to America’s place in the world and its reputation as a reliable ally.
We shouldn’t be surprised about that either perhaps, because Trump and Musk are no one’s idea of conservatives. On the contrary, they have taken a radical wrecking ball to America’s public service, its political and judicial systems, and are moving rapidly to crush domestic dissent and opposition – such as it is. As Ian Buruma points out, ‘Trump is deliberately destroying trust in the system of government that has held together a vast and disparate country”. It is far from clear that genuine democracy in the US will survive.
If all this seems familiar, it should. After all, this is precisely the sort of regime that has been developed by some of the other strong men leaders Trump admires so much. Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu surely cannot believe their luck in finding such a sympathetic friend in the White House.
Hungary’s Viktor Orban deserves much of the credit for providing a blueprint for the evisceration of an established democracy, but he’s no longer the outlier he was either. There are a number of other established or aspiring authoritarians and populists poised to reinforce anti-democratic practices in Europe. The contempt the Trump regime has for Europe was clear from J.D. Vance’s address to the Munich Security Conference, which was only surpassed by his meeting AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, rather than chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Far from being the proverbial light on the hill and champion of democracy, not to mention the rules-based international order so frequently invoked by our government, the Trump administration seems to be taking lessons from the corrupt, autocrat regimes that have for so long been the target of American criticism and reformist interventions.
To be fair, if Trump stops the war in Ukraine, that really will be something. It’s difficult to think of compelling arguments against stopping pointless slaughter, although Trump’s unlikely to remind Netanyahu of this reality. But a deal with Russia that excludes Europe and Ukraine will be devastating for the latter, of course, and will only confirm Trump in the view that Europeans are irrelevant and freeloaders.
It might not be welcomed in Taiwan either. If Trump’s willing to sell-out what is arguably America’s most important and long-standing group of allies to a Russian autocrat, what’s to say he won’t do exactly the same with the Chinese variety? After all, Trump’s a great admirer of Xi Jinping’s style of governance, too. If there’s a deal to be made with a fellow strongman that’s supposedly in America’s national interest, why would we expect anything else?
The fact that so many mainstream economists are concerned by Trump’s protectionist and transactional instincts is unlikely to worry him either. He is, after all, a “very stable genius”, and surrounded by flunkies who know that disagreeing with the boss will almost certainly mean their expulsion from the magic circle, and all the possibilities for self-enrichment that may offer. It is no coincidence that Trump attracts so many plutocrats interested in the art of the deal.
Given that the country routinely described as the cornerstone of Australian security appears to be turning into an undemocratic, authoritarian regime, intent on spreading its noxious ideology around the world, one might expect some discussion about its possible implications by our political and strategic elites. Don’t hold your breath. No one in the major parties is likely to offer a word of criticism or provide what Albanese dismissively describes as a “running commentary”. Why would he? It’s only the safety of the nation and the region upon which we depend that’s at stake, after all.
Perhaps if the Americans invade Canada we might diplomatically indicate that all things considered, we don’t think it’s wise, but it’s an issue for the Trump regime, of course. All a bit unlikely, we trust, but who would have thought that Trump would be making deals with his authoritarian counterparts, rather than his traditional European and Anglosphere allies.
At a time when both the major political parties are committed to spending $368 billion of taxpayers’ money on submarines that are never likely to arrive, we might hope that someone in Canberra is having a think about what four more years of Trump might mean for us, the region and our long-term security. If Trump really is happy to carve up the world into “spheres of influence“, this might be a good time to begin ingratiating ourselves with China.
Mark Beeson is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Griffith University. His latest book is Environmental Anarchy? International Relations Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene, (Bristol University Press: 2021) He has also written Environmental Populism: The Politics of Survival; in the Anthropocene Palgrave 2019
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