Voting in federal or state elections has invariably posed a dilemma ever since my family and I qualified as citizens almost a quarter-century ago, at a ceremony where we were handed out miniature editions of the New Testament alongside the sausage sandwiches.

It was easy to detest the tories without being enthused by Labor in its Beazley-bub period. In 2004, the Mark Latham interlude seemed potentially game-changing. Given his subsequent trajectory, his loss back then seems like a blessing. Kevin 07 offered a scintilla of hope that was rapidly extinguished. Julia Gillard turned out to be far more commendable as a deputy prime minister than as prime minister – although it must be acknowledged that her minority government from 2010 onwards managed to pass an impressive amount of legislation. Among that, the National Insurance Disability Scheme has proved to be both an albatross and a blessing for Labor.

The Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison years from 2013 urned out to be a catastrophe for the Coalition, with Scott Morrison’s takeover supposedly intended to stave off the likelihood of a Turnbull-hating Peter Dutton taking over the Liberal Party. It happened anyway for a variety of reasons, and the prospect of Dutton emerging next month as PM cannot be ruled out. In the event, his likeliest Elon Musk prototype would be Trump acolyte Gina Rinehart.

Australia’s richest person is a regular at Mar-a-Lago and the so-called Trumpettes would love to see her as Australia’s ambassador to Washington. That’s not much. Kevin Rudd seems to have taken a vow of silence after the second coming of Donald Trump, and remains in situ despite his previous diatribes against the current White House incumbent. We shall find out next month whether his days are numbered, but the idea of an ambassador who places the MAGA philosophy ahead of Australia’s interests would hardly be welcome news for Australians.

What, though, are Australia’s interests? At the global level, we have remained resolutely wedded to the American empire since switching allegiance from the British variant circa World War II. The all-too-brief Whitlam period unleashed a cultural revolution of sorts that might not have particularly troubled Washington were it not for Canberra’s occasional criticisms of America’s genocidal endeavours in Vietnam, notably the Christmas bombing of 1973. At Pine Gap two years later, the champagne flowed as its employees celebrated the triumph of “our guy” — John Kerr — over the elected PM.

Whitlam never acknowledged the American role in his dismissal 50 years ago, but wondered whether he might have been wrong after the US deputy secretary of state Warren Christopher conveyed a message from Jimmy Carter acknowledging Washington’s role and vowing that the US would never again pursue the same path. In his last years, Gough’s 1970s nemesis Malcolm Fraser surpassed him as a critic of Australia’s vassalage.

The broadly neoliberal inclination of Labor’s post-Fraser interregnum was distinguished by its tendency to kowtow to the Reagan/Bush administrations while also pursuing a closer relationship with Asia. China became its biggest trading partner in due course, but the US remained the godfather. Signing up to AUKUS was Morrison’s choice, but Labor lacked the courage to dissent. Australia is now trapped in a defence arrangement that could cost up to $440 billion, with no guarantee that the nuclear-powered submarines will actually turn up in the next decade – or, for that matter, be autonomously owned.

That is only a part of the bilateral problem, though. In the changing world order, Australia stands alongside an imperial power that has its eyes on Canada, Greenland and Gaza – the last of those beset by a genocide whose perpetrator seeks to escape the opprobrium it obviously deserves by weaponising antisemitism. The Labor Government occasionally resents in mealy-mouthed terms the worst excesses in occupied Palestine, but dare not diverge from the Western consensus on endorsing a Zionist project that no longer bothers to disguise its ambition to eradicate Palestinian existence in Eretz Israel. The bipartisan reaction in NSW to what the police realised early on (and eventually acknowledged) was little more than a criminal furphy dedicated to creating the impression of impending antisemitic violence suggests that the tendency towards guarding Zionist interests will remain intact regardless of the outcome on 3 May.

That is not the only elephant in the room. Since at least the 1980s, ostensible political rivals across the West have coalesced around neoliberal capitalism of the Reagan-Thatcher variety, with dire consequences in every arena. The Hawke-Keating regime in Australia was in some respects a turning point, exacerbated in the Howard years, and insufficiently remedied in the aftermath. Today, any campaign against “price gouging” by the supermarket duopoly is bound to fall flat without acknowledging that profit maximisation is an intrinsic component of the free-market capitalism we are all supposed to cherish.

Pretending that it can be dealt with within the existing economic paradigm is a mug’s game. And, despite its notorious factionalism, the ALP does not have a left wing that could match even the much depleted variant in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. Labor’s Senate team no longer boasts the likes of Doug Cameron or even John Faulkner. Penny Wong might once have seemed a potential harbinger of progressive values, but that was long ago. Even the mild-mannered Fatima Payman seemed a bridge too far for a supposedly left-leaning party dedicated at home and abroad to propelling the right angle. Anthony Albanese might have demurred in his youth, but as party leader he has seemingly been untroubled by Labor’s rightwards regression.

It goes almost without saying that the Liberal-National alternative is much worse. There are, no doubt, worthy independents in some seats, and the Greens generally qualify as a superior option amid the usual quest for the lesser evil – which might benefit Labor here and there, but invariably exemplifies the limits of Western democracy.

Perhaps the best that can be hoped for under present circumstances is a Labor Government reliant on the Greens and Independents for a working majority. Something better ought to emerge in the longer term, but who knows how many of us might live to see it.