Pearls and Irritations

The fascist trend in America’s politics portends a lasting erosion of the underpinnings of the ties which have bound Australia to its most important ally and provides a powerful reason for us to loosen these ties.

It’s a chilling realisation that we are faced with a US president who, despite his folksy acceptance address seems bent on creating a regime with disturbing fascist characteristics. Even more confronting is that a majority of the US voting population are amenable to such an appalling prospect and are immune to the incalculable damage to the US and the world economy likely to be wrought by this presidency. Trump has not created these attitudes in voters, but rather he has unearthed and reinforced them and bound them into an ongoing powerful political force.

For Australia, the fascist trend in America’s politics portends a lasting erosion of the underpinnings of the ties which have bound Australia to its most important ally and provides a powerful reason for us to loosen these ties.

The emergence of power centralising anti-democratic traits characteristic of fascism was clearly visible during the last Trump presidency. That came in the erosion of some of the key tenets of democracy and efforts to centralise power in the presidency. Stacking the supreme court significantly neutered the separation of powers – of which the judicial system is a central pillar. Another other major pillar of democracy – the separation of power between the executive and legislative was also being dismantled by Trump’s ability to imbue a hyper partisan stranglehold over Republican members of the House of Representatives and Senate. Witness Trump’s capacity – even when out of power – to block for partisan reasons legislation which would have produced a significant tightening reform of immigration policy.

The road to fascism is also being followed by Trump in his efforts to centralise power in the Presidency. That aim is being pursued in a number of post election agendas which include bringing the FBI and the Department of Justice under the president’s direct political control. In parallel, Trump has signalled mass sackings and replacements with compliant government employees eradicating the independence of the bureaucracy and thus further expanding the power of the President,

But surely what indicates that the seeds of fascism are being implanted in the US – as an increasing number of academics are now arguing – is the problematically large proportion of adult Americans who support a person who is repudiating the essence of democracy – the validity of elections. In holding to this repudiation, Trump has harvested the long building discontent over the long broken American dream – and particularly for older white Americans. That they still believe this dream can be repaired under Trump signals they still hold that success is there for anyone who really tries – in reality a subjection to a Darwinian mode of survival – of survival of the fittest. For these and others in the lowest socio-economic strata, there is the realisation that democracy has not delivered a significant improvement in their standard of living. All this feeds the essentially fascist notion that what is needed is not a robust democracy but a strong, powerful leader to effect change.

We must also be acutely concerned that Americans accept that the price for a strong leader is a president who has been twice impeached, convicted of 34 felonies, is a compulsive liar, a misogynist, a racist, a narcissist, a sexist, someone who has utter disregard for the truth and a bully who compulsively seeks to vengefully inflict retribution on his critics.

We can equally wonder how a majority of Americans blithely accept that centralising power will deliver rich economic rewards as promised by Trump. In reality, they accept policies which are directly antithetical to their interests. That is:

•  Lowering the tax rate on the wealthy and thus further widening the already yawing income inequality.

• Generating a regressive global trade war by applying a global 20% tariff (and the threat of a 60% tariff on Chinese imports) and thereby reigniting inflation and likely an economic recession.

• Further lowering the corporate tax rate from 21 to 15% which, together with tax cuts which would lead to a massive increase in debt – to around an estimated 10% of GDP – thus destabilising the international monetary order and ultimately slowing global growth.

• Selling off the US economy to corporate billionaire backers.

• Withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change, repeal of carbon saving legislation and regulations and the introduction of new measure to open the spigots of the American carbon economy and thereby seriously impeding global efforts to hold temperature rises which are currently on track to reach well over 2 degrees.

Nevertheless, during the election night one SBS commentator asserted that you had to accept that Americans had so voted with good reason. No one demurred other than one of his colleagues who later observed that voters were, in supporting Trump, effectively rejecting democracy.

This election therefore provides evidence of the chronic fragility of American democracy and the confronting fact that Australia’s interests will by no means be shared by a majority of the US population. In foreign policy terms it seems Americans are happy to put power into the hands of someone who has no particular attachment to pivoting to Asia, who spurns the complexities of multilateralism, but prefers transactional bilateralism backed by an unshakable belief in an enduring global US hegemony and military supremacy. And while some may support his declared aim to disengage the US in other country wars his transactional skills are surely highly questionable if not dangerous. In such a world our Asia oriented agreements -ANZUS, the QUAD – may no longer be regarded as foundational institutions on which long term relationships can be nurtured.

The risks for Australia are all the more severe given so many Americans are content to ignore that their presidents – including Biden – pay limited heed to critical elements of the rules based international order such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. With Trump as President Australia must accept that our alliance with the US will be even less underpinned by shared western, democratic and humanitarian values.

But international allies we do need in terms of crafting a favourable international economic order. That is, we need multilateral support for our trade dependent economy, securing global consensus on climate change and biodiversity preservation so critical for our future wellbeing, and for strengthening UN progress on humanitarian/cultural goals through globally robust multilateral institutions. In these endeavours we are surely better suited to forging such consensuses with the EU together with other like-minded countries.

This election therefore provides disturbing confirmation that Australia needs to progressively disengage with our current lockstep support of the US in international relations. Without suffering great opprobrium from President Trump, we could progressively expend far greater diplomatic resources firstly within our own Asia-Pacific/Indo Pacific region but also with the EU. We could also begin to discard the habit of professing to be co-defenders with the US of democracy and the rightfulness of western civilisation. The US track record on these issues – and especially in regard to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict – does not sell well in our region and for good reason.

Moreover, this presidential election warns us that with such a compliant electorate, the severe damage already inflicted on US democratic ideals may be further eroded in the coming years.

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