There is something rather like irony for both parties in this omnishambles US election: whichever one loses, it will be all their own fault. Michael Pascoe.
If the Republicans had chosen Nikki Haley instead of Trump, the election would be as good as over. She would have creamed it, tapping into voter dissatisfaction without stirring voter fear.
Trump has been the best thing going for Harris. In a tight race coming down to a relative handful of votes in an actual handful of states, it has been the dislike/fear/revulsion sparked by Trump that will make the difference for a Harris win.
On the other hand, if the Democrats hadn’t bowed to the wishes of Biden and his coterie to start with, they would have had a primaries process to select and popularise their strongest candidate. That might or might not have been Harris. If she emerged from the primaries with the nomination, she would have had more air and time to establish herself as the candidate rather than being Biden’s sidekick and last-minute alternative, likely to be ahead in the polls instead of 50/50.
In landing those extra few votes to win, Biden/Harris has been the best thing going for Trump, too.
The adage that “oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them” has a twist here – whoever wins, it will mainly because the other mob lost, missing their main opportunities to win.
And for Australia?
Meanwhile, far away on an island continent blessed way beyond any deserving, the Guardian has published a humbling poll that alleges 33 per cent of Australians, if they were eligible, would vote for Trump compared with 41 per cent for Harris – a mere eight-point difference.
Given the saturation coverage here of the election and, especially, Trump’s multitudinous legal, character and policy failings, not to mention his level of dingbat craziness that only Greg Sheridan could like, that is a bit of a worry about the direction of our own nation’s psyche.
This is not to suggest Harris is a great candidate, just that Trump is so palpably bad that America is considered something of a worrying joke everywhere outside of Russia and amongst a third of Australians.
Who knew the drive of the Murdochs’ Fox News business model could reach so far?
That third who would vote for Trump if they could pretty much match the One Hanson supporters who are aware an election is being held plus the conservative end of the increasingly conservatively-ended LNP – the end that hangs on every word of its biggest benefactor, Gina Rinehart, and can’t resist aping every Republican Party move.
The worry for Australia in the steady rise of the hard right is that mimicking the dystopian Trump grievance whine is working for them.
Crikey’s Bernard Keane has posited that Trump’s supporters are blind to their leader’s numerous crimes and failings because they support what he basically is – a hateful, grievance-filled, xenophobic, racist misogynist.
I would add another line: what Trump and his media enablers (here’s looking at you, Musk and Murdochs) have done is to remove any sense of embarrassment about being racist and/or misogynistic. Being loud and proud at the uncivilised end of the spectrum and being celebrated for it empowers others to shed restraint, to shed any veil that had been thrown over inherited multi-generational attitudes.
In the same way that social media has provided support for conspiracy theorists by giving them a sense of community, reinforcing their lunacies, Trump boasting about being Trump has liberated others to unleash their inner prejudices.
The tragedy is that we are so much better than that, we are so much better off than that.
Our RWNJs generally lack the excuses American RWNJs might have for wanting to trash the joint. We enjoy a reasonable social safety net, we have universal healthcare, inequality is not as rife, our borders are not as porous, education is more readily available, our life expectancy is high and moving higher while America’s is declining.
To make Trumpism work here, its promoters have to tap into a deeper inner poison. That is a dangerous thing to unleash.
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Michael Pascoe is an independent journalist and commentator with five decades of experience here and abroad in print, broadcast and online journalism. His book, The Summertime of Our Dreams, is published by Ultimo Press.
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