The best case scenario for the next Donald Trump administration is that he will treat the presidency as a get out of jail free card, and spend the next four years playing golf and firing people, in between dispensing tax cuts to the ultra-rich. The worst case scenario is that he will turn the world’s biggest economy into the newest and best-armed autocracy.
A little over half of the USA’s potential voters managed to bestir themselves to vote in 2024, with a major spike in Google searches on election day across crucial swing states asking, ‘did Joe Biden drop out?’ So much for the Information Age.
Defying most polls, the Republican vote went up pretty much everywhere, among all constituencies, except for white women who went to university. On average across the country there was a swing of over six per cent to Trump. In swing states, where the Harris campaign spent a billion dollars and focused most of their campaigning efforts, it was a little over three per cent.
Much has been made of Elon Musk’s role in politicising and weaponising the toxic manosphere, but the Republican vote increased even in places where they spent very little money or effort.
US not so exceptional?
If you want to find something vaguely positive in all this, the election result might have almost nothing to do with the rampant misogyny, racism and lies of the Trump campaign.
Every incumbent national government facing re-election in 2024 has faced the wrath of voters at the ballot box, from the UK to Botswana, and from Poland and Argentina to South Korea. Around the world, post-COVID inflation is being blamed on whoever happens to be in government, whether they lean right or left.
Joe Biden’s government received no credit from voters for what has been in global terms a miraculous soft landing, with inflation in the US already beginning to decline without an accompanying rise in unemployment, or recession. Having contributed to the problem originally, Donald Trump will now claim credit for the economic turnaround, along with lower interest rates, both of which took Democrats years to achieve.
Psephologists say that in times like these, the ‘change candidate’ always wins. Most of the pollsters who got it so wrong last week decided Kamala Harris was the change candidate this time round, but it seems she entered the race far too late to separate herself from an unpopular Joe Biden, despite running a near flawless campaign in conventional terms.
Anthony Albanese will be concerned that this global rejection of incumbents is still a thing in 2025.
The Republicans have now won complete control of the US Senate, and are on track to also take a majority in the House of Representatives, where counting continues. If they fail to take the House, the closest thing the USA will have to an opposition leader will be the current Democrat House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries.
There are encouraging early signs of resistance to some of Trump’s more extreme ideas from Democratic governors around the country, along with the Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, who was originally appointed by Donald Trump but is now saying the incoming president has no right to sack him.
Government by billionaires, for billionaires
Having squashed the Washington Post‘s pro-Harris editorial in advance, billionaire owner Jeff Bezos publicly congratulated Donald Trump on his ‘extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory’, wishing him every success.
As a direct result of Trump’s historic win, the wealth of fellow rocket man Elon Musk has just increased by a further $3 billion. Not a bad payout for an investment of $130 million.
The bloke who ran Twitter into the ground is now salivating at the prospect of doing the same thing to the US economy, where the poor can look forward to ‘austerity’, while Musk’s personal riches continue to multiply in the absence of safety regulations, labour standards or competition from Chinese electric cars (which will now likely be subject to substantial tariffs).
Other international ramifications from Trump Strikes Back, the sequel, are likely to be complete disaster for Ukraine (and whichever country Vladimir Putin decides to invade next), and a green light for Benjamin Netanyahu to ‘finish the job’ of destroying Gaza and turning it into a lovely piece of coastal real estate for the next occupants.
Environmental advances under Biden will likely be reversed, hastening humanity as a whole towards extinction, as a psychologically damaged president with no understanding of science happily pushes us over global tipping points with abandon, much more concerned with his own ego and the corrupt enrichment of his family and cronies.
Allies?
Australia’s ambassador to the USA, Kevin Rudd, has already deleted negative comments he made in the past about Donald Trump from his social media, and Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have been quick to congratulate the first felon, adjudicated rapist and compulsive liar to be returned to the White House.
Quensland senator Matt Canavan reportedly celebrated with McDonalds delivered to Parliament House by Uber Eats.
Beyond the question of what will happen to AUKUS, the greatest immediate effect of Trump’s return to power here is likely to be the promotion of extreme and dangerous nonsense as the centrepiece of right wing election campaigns.
For little Trumps, the lesson they will take from this is that there is no bottom – negative campaigners can be as immoral, criminal and incompetent as they like. There will be no repercussions, and with the assistance of a compliant media and social media ecosystem, you will be rewarded with the highest office in the land.
The lesson for progressive politicians, as Bernie Sanders warned, is that if you abandon the poor, they will abandon you.
‘I love the uneducated’
Returning to the White House in 2025 is a perfect Dunning-Kruger effect specimen who previously advocated injecting bleach to deal with COVID and changing the course of hurricanes with nuclear weapons and sharpies. An Amway executive was his last education secretary. This time, Trump has advocated getting rid of the federal education department entirely. Ignorance and stupidity are his allies.
As French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre said, ‘The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.’ Those who oppose tyrants need to smarten up, and fast.
The problem for American citizens now (and perhaps Australians too, before long), is that when you put people in charge of government who want to destroy the government, you don’t get a better government, you get chaos, and the law of the jungle.
Corporations may prosper in such an environment, but humans don’t.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
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