In 2025, after nearly 50 years of global neoliberalism since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the rich have got richer and inequalities have grown.

The feeling that “things are crook in Tallarook” has only intensified with worldwide inflation, political instability and invasion wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Is Peter Dutton’s anti-woke election campaign a case of trying to “sell a pup” to ordinary voters? It’s a simple question with a complicated answer.

One response to the rising inequality has been populism, beginning in Australia with the maverick Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in 1990s Queensland.

Its basic idea pits “the people” against “the elites”. It suggests the latter are ripping off ordinary folk, particularly older Australians, country people and semi-skilled men, younger and beyond.

The second populist pattern is blame – targeting elites and outsiders e.g. immigrants taking housing, refugees and crime and an attack on the politically correct, the woke, on marginal issues such as sexualities that somehow threaten traditional Australians.

It is about emotional gratification, not practical policies to help people.

Hanson doesn’t matter much these days, except in regional Queensland and other bush seats. But the larger world has changed. It is about more than legitimate discontents.

Donald Trump has orchestrated a chorus of right-wing populism as he pits simple phrases such as “common sense”, “lock her up” (Hillary Clinton in 2016) and “drain the swamp” against so-called “elites” in Washington.

Trumposis has spread worldwide, echoed through copiers like  Australia’s rich man with no serious popular support, Clive Palmer.  His latest bizarre advertising-led non-party is already dubbed by some as the “Strumpets Party”.

Populism is no longer marginal. Mainstream conservative parties, including the Liberal National Coalition, have weaponised it, appealing to frustrated voters with little interest or knowledge in policy detail.

At the same time, in an era of continuing insecurities — from wars to housing to AI threats to employment — the desire for a strongman has risen in Western democracies.

This is part of the Trump appeal. Despite the blots on his character and skills — the worst seen in a presidential candidate — he had popular allure. The Apprentice host knows how to perform, from simple language to WWE wrestling moments of humour. He can play a crowd, with some warmth.

Although fact-checkers can see the gap between performer and substance (rape convictions, bankruptcies and tax cuts for the rich), many Midwest Americans bought the pup Trump was selling.

Except the real elites are not the politically correct elites. They are US$250-million supporter Elon Musk and San Francisco Bay area billionaires, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

In the same vein, Dutton’s elites are an LNP problem. Central is Gina Rinehart,  who flew him across the country for an hour at her birthday party, and the partying Sydney rich, who welcomed him to a Vaucluse mansion when he might have been in Queensland’s cyclone zone.

In a world of Trumposis, as his power and performance influence politics globally, how will it weigh on the 3 May federal election?

Will it benefit the ex-cop LNP strongman Dutton, who prefers Kirribilli to Canberra?

Or will it benefit the incumbents? Anthony Albanese’s and Jim Chalmers’ Labor might be seen as a steady pair of hands, while Trump creates chaos – his trade war has a 40% chance of leading to a global recession, according to Moody’s.

In my analysis, while Dutton floats anti-PC “culture wars” using Trump’s style, he is just selling a pup. That’s why critics have dubbed him “Temu Trump”.

His declared opposition to “indoctrination” in education — with exact details unspecified — will do nothing for “battlers”. His ABC cutbacks may appeal to Sky After Dark voices and Murdoch tabloid columnists as revenge, but they’re small beer for more objective voters.

Once, Trump’s energy and movement was a benefit to Dutton. Now, as instability threatens, it may seriously harm his electoral prospects. As Trump has declared war on his enemies, the Dutton drum stresses division and conflict, a strange version of the Coalition’s “back on track” campaign slogan.

Dutton’s Trump-like aggression may put off women voters in Teal-held and some suburban lower middle-class seats. He also has a colder manner than Trump.

An imported Trumpism may appeal to small-business contractor tradies and struggling unskilled males with poor economic and life prospects – but many of them will vote informal or just not vote.

There are complications to the election context. The _Per Capita report_ by Emma Dawson documented a strong legislative program of achievement, but the government has had indecisive moments on environment and climate change and followed “Me Tooism” on AUKUS.

“Foreign affairs” matters have little electoral consequence, except for some Teal inner-city middle-class seats and Green Senate votes. What does matter, given the media’s lack of interest in policies or achievements, is the personality contest between leaders.

Here, the government has a problem. Albanese has been an effective prime minister, but reality can be obscured by Labor’s indecision, including the rise of neo-McCarthyist repression of democratic debate over the Gaza genocide. From government to universities, freedom of speech has been repressed.

The personalised politics problem — the AFL-like competition between two teams’ captains as media and polls play the game — challenges the government. Albanese often speaks tentatively, while Dutton can sound definite – including on his nuclear power policy, despite having neither dates nor costs.

On Saturday, 3 May, the final result, who’s ahead on the scoreboard, may be determined by the key populist question.

Voters who understandably think “things are crook” in the world and Australia might go one way or another. They might choose stability and continuity and return the government. Or they might put their hopes in Dutton’s ersatz “anti-elite” rhetoric.

This could happen, even if critics, having looked at Trump’s destructive first weeks, believe that Dutton, Trump lite and Gina’s envoy, is also “selling them a pup”.

Republished from THE NEW DAILY, 4 April 2025