Trump’s contribution to democracy
Canada’s election
At the beginning of this year Canada’s Conservatives were on track to win a landside over Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, riding on the right-wing wave that had done so well for Trump and far-right parties in mainland Europe. Resentment at inflation and housing costs and concern about immigration were surely going to secure the Conservatives’ success.
Then two things happened.
The Liberals replaced Trudeau with Mark Carney.
And just south of the border Trump’s term in office started on January 20.
Trump helped the Liberals in two ways. First he imposed punishing tariffs on Canada and promised to make Canada the 51st state of the USA. (He might at least have recognised that Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories, and have suggested they take places 51 to 60). And the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, adopted many of Trump’s populist tactics.
We have to wait until researchers have done their work to know which was the strongest influence in ensuring the Liberals’ success in turning around the polls and holding government – Carney replacing Trudeau, Trump’s aggression against Canada, or the opposition’s adoption of Trump’s tactics.
The Liberals have won 168 seats, 4 seats short of a majority in their own right, but they have the support of a smaller progressive party which will allow them to govern. And in a good omen for the outcome in our Dickson electorate, Poilievre lost his own seat.
Fiona MacDonald of the University of Northern British Columbia and Jeanette Ashe of King’s College London have a Conversation contribution Game change Canadian election: Mark Carney leads Liberals to their fourth consecutive win.
In their article they reveal some clear differences from Australia: Canadas’s electoral system is first-past-the-post and voting is voluntary (turnout was 68 percent). But other patterns are similar, including the trend towards early voting. And as in the US and in Australia, young men who have missed out on education and good jobs have been increasingly drawn to the right.
Adrian Beaumont has a Conversation contribution, written on Tuesday afternoon after Canadian counting had finished for the day: Centre-left Liberals make stunning comeback to win Canadian election.
Our election
Has Trump’s behaviour helped Albanese?
The Financial Review’s Jennifer Hewitt certainly thinks so, expressed in her article Trump is boosting left-wing victories. That’s bad news for Dutton. He may also be helping our not-so-left-wing Anthony Albanese hold on to his job.
It’s hard for Australians not to see the similarities. Hewitt writes that “Dutton still can’t avoid the antipathy of middle-Australia towards the US president compounding the Coalition’s campaign errors in domestic tactics and strategy”.
At some time in the last few weeks someone in the Coalition’s campaign team must surely have told Dutton that Trump wasn’t going down all that well in his own country. It might therefore have been a good idea if Dutton didn’t emulate Trump’s style and policies.
Perhaps there wasn’t any such advice. Or perhaps Dutton tried – he even brought himself to say some positive things about welcome to country ceremonies – but it seems that he couldn’t break from a pattern that had served him so well in his life so far.
Bernard Keane has a Crikey article From “hate media” to ‘lock him up’, Dutton’s Trump tribute act is still reliably playing the hits. There are clearly Trump inspired policies including DOGE, slashing the Education Department, cutting migration, and stopping working from home. Dutton has gone so far as to suggest that Albanese’s administration is a criminal one: if he keeps on with his present behaviour Albanese will surely be convicted of a criminal offence. There is even the Trumpism of loyalty over merit in Dutton’s idea of appointing to a senior government position former Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzulo “who was sacked for an array of breaches of the public service code of conduct” and who left Home Affairs “in an abject mess”.
Albanese, however, dismisses the idea that Dutton is imitating Trump. In an interview on the ABC’s 730program Sarah Ferguson asked if Labor has been helped by Dutton’s similarity to Trump, but Albanese replied “I think Peter Dutton has darkened his own brand. He has made a career out of promoting division, about punching down on vulnerable people, about seeking to divide the community.”
It’s an understandable response: Albanese wants to assure voters that Dutton is not just copying Trump as a (misguided) election strategy. Those behaviours, he implies, are hard-wired and would carry on to a Dutton administration.