Thanks to Jo Immig for her thought-provoking article on the Trump phenomenon. Like all right-wing charlatans, Trump promises things he can’t possibly deliver. Add a dose of extreme narcissism and the occasional two-year-old hissy fit and we have a very dangerous demagogue as American president.
But as leftists, we have to study what’s fuelling the surge to the extreme right. Not all Americans are MAGA fanatics or espouse nutcase conspiracy theories.
Many Trump voters say ‘cost of living’ motivated them to vote for him (watch Dutton attempt the same false promises here). The high cost of living is a global post-pandemic issue. National governments really can’t do much about it. The other major issue fuelling the extreme right in America and Europe is immigration. The perception that first-world countries are being swamped by illegal third-world immigrants is a strong motivator for voting hard right. These aren’t always racists or fascists but ordinary people who often support controlled immigration and multiculturalism. Many Trump voters were Latinos or African American and point out that many illegals aren’t refugees fleeing persecution but economic hardship. Even as a leftist I tend to agree with their point that we should be encouraging migrants to stay and better their lands if possible rather than fleeing to the west. This is a major issue in Europe and America that the left needs to address to shift the tide away from otherwise unelectable extremists.
Thankfully Australia has already defused this fire. Labor has copied the LNP in cracking down on unauthorised migrants therefore knocking the wind out of the likes of Dutton and Hanson. If social democratic parties around the world followed suit they’d be no Trump, AfD or Le Pen. The extreme right would have to retreat back into the dark abyss from which it emerged.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
