There’s Still Time, But It’s Later Than You Think

By now it should be fairly obvious to anyone who’s paid even a scrap of attention to international news that Australia’s closest ally, the United States of America, is in the throes of a slow-motion apocalypse.

President Donald Trump is issuing a seemingly endless flow of Executive Orders, many of which are flatly unconstitutional. Those that aren’t would often require government employees to commit crimes if they tried to carry them out. Most of them are based on lies. And they are all, unfailingly, cruel.

Meanwhile co-President Elon Musk and his roving band of edgelord marauders are wreaking havoc with the essential, foundational agencies that keep the US operating. Private data in the hands of a guy who thinks it’s super cool to talk about how he was a racist before it was “cool”. Access to nuclear weapons systems in the hands of a guy whose sense of humour is so juvenile he thinks having the username “BigBalls” is somehow praiseworthy. These kids – and they are kids, none of them is older than 24 years old – are the stereotype of every TV show hacker taken to the absurd extreme. With no authority whatsoever, they are storming into the most sensitive data centres and dismantling agencies, using all the finesse and professional experience of a troop of monkeys throwing their shit at passersby and laughing about it.

Perhaps most shocking was Trump’s announcement, two days ago, that he intended to forcibly displace the population of Gaza, raze what’s left of it to the ground, and build a utopian dream park on the bloodied ruins. The people, he said, could just go set up camp in a neighbouring country. Problem solved. To make it happen, US troops would be sent in to help Israel complete its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

That prompted outcry from countries around the world – not just Arab states, but from nations allied with the US. Great Britain rejected the plan, as did both France and Germany. Saudi Arabia declared it “dead on arrival”. China wasn’t having a bar of it.

And what about us? Surely Australia would finally stand up and tell big brother that whoa, hang on a minute, that’s going too far? What say you, Prime Minister Albanese?

Nothing.

Crickets.

Look over there at other stuff that’s completely unrelated to the question you’re asking me!

It was a pathetic display of utter cowardice. And his Foreign Minister, Senator Penny Wong, was missing in action altogether.

Albanese may think he’s skilfully dodging the issue, but he’s dead wrong. By refusing to comment, he sends a message to Australians that he either agrees with Trump’s plan to erase Palestinians from the face of the earth, or that he’s too much of a craven sycophant to call it out for the horrific war crime it is. He’s telling the people who he wants to vote for him at the next election that he hasn’t got enough spine to take a stand.

Unsurprisingly, Albo copped an immediate backlash from across the political spectrum. Anyone who had even an inkling that just maybe genocide was utterly evil condemned him for not speaking out against Trump’s plan. The right-wing genocide enthusiasts, on the other hand, criticised him for not backing the President. There was no welcome for him and his ostrich impersonation anywhere.

And nor should there be. In the face of the systematic persecution of black South Africans under apartheid, former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam moved decisively to begin instituting sanctions that significantly contributed to the eventual dismantling of that country’s regime. The work he began was continued by subsequent Prime Ministers from both major parties. Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, and Bob Hawke took a principled, unpopular stance, and refused to cave in under pressure. Albanese, the inheritor of that tradition, brought shame to their legacy when he refused to do the same.

There was no such equivocation on Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s part. He practically fell all over himself rushing to a microphone to sing Trump’s praises. He told the media that the President was “a big thinker and a deal maker”, a “shrewd” businessman who “brings gravitas” to the situation.

Gravitas? You’re talking about Trump? The man who got excited about the idea of injecting disinfectant and shining bright light inside people’s bodies to “cure” Covid-19? The man who seems not to understand the difference between political asylum and “mental” asylums? Who seemed not to understand that Hannibal Lecter is a fictional character, and not some South American undocumented immigrant? Thatguy??

Listening to Dutton was like hearing a Trump rally, minus the irrelevant ramblings. Trump “wants other countries in the region to step up and take responsibility”, Dutton said, practically quoting Republican campaign talking points. He wanted to know why “we” American taxpayers were paying for causes in other countries. (Bit of a Freudian slip there, Pete?) And look how all the prices are going up! In such circumstances, how could it not be reasonable to ethnically cleanse Palestinians?

No, really. That’s the through-line of Dutton’s comments. Cost of living is bad, so sure, razing Gaza to the ground and building Trumpland is a great idea. Never mind the billions of dollars it would cost to even begin to undertake such a monstrous project, because somehow that would bring down the cost of petrol and mortgage interest rates. It’s as idiotic a pronouncement as anything the lunatic fringe of politics has ever come out with – except this came from a man who, as polls stand right now, could be our next Prime Minister.

Lest we were in any doubt that Dutton is looking to Trump for his talking points, the Opposition Leader spent some time with Liberal Party shill Peta Credlin to show his utter disregard for any science that doesn’t serve his agenda. Lots of talk about how “we know there are two sexes”, and how it was perfectly reasonable to exclude trans women from playing sport with cis women. Oh, and he didn’t shy away from repeating the lie that parents are somehow being hoodwinked while their Precious And Innocent Cherubs are being forcibly turned into trans kids.

It’s pretty clear that Dutton has not only drunk the MAGA Kool-aid, he’s mainlining it.

The only party leader who showed any conviction whatsoever on the Gaza issue was Greens MP Adam Bandt, whose reaction was confined to two short paragraphs at the very end of the ABC’s article. He called it like it is – a “clear violation of international law”.

Remember, Israel’s actions in Gaza have already been adjudicated as genocidal by the International Court of Justice, and Australia has long recognised the authority of that Court and the binding nature of its judgments. Bandt knows this, as I’m sure do Albanese and Dutton – yet Bandt was the only one who had the balls to state that truth publicly.

Dr Monique Ryan, Member for Kooyong, came out with a similar condemnation. She found Trump’s Gaza plans “terrifying”. When asked about Albanese and Dutton, though, her answers were less than satisfying. She hinted that Albanese might have an excuse for not speaking out, and said that if she were a Palestinian, she’d be “distressed” to hear Dutton on the subject. At least she said something, although she too was relegated to around 7 minutes on ABC News’ Afternoon Briefing.

This is what we are seeing, again and again. Albanese weasels and hedges his bets with all the moral fibre of a piece of soggy lettuce, while Dutton makes a direct appeal to the worst aspects of human nature and seemingly doesn’t care about the potential illegal, immoral, or just plain vicious implications of what he says. Bandt, and the few politicians like him who display even a shred of integrity, are deliberately side-lined by the media.

The left side of politics tends to vote with its feet. Already, there are people vowing on social media that they might have been Labor voters all their lives, but not any more. Whether it’s Trump’s genocidal theme park fantasies, his wilful ignorance of scientific reality, or his belief that he has merely to will a thing and it shall be done, Labor has time and again failed to utter even the mildest criticism. This mealy-mouthed cowardice is already showing in the polls. If it continues on this path, Labor will lose the upcoming federal election, and lose it terribly.

Those on the right are less likely to jump ship. Perhaps secure in the belief that the face-eating leopards will never eat their faces, it takes a lot to pry Liberal and National Party voters away from their loyalty to the conservative side of politics. Sure, there was something of a Teal triumph last election, but that had less to do with national or international issues, and much more to do with local, grass-roots campaigning. It’s going to take much more than that to peel off enough voters to erase Dutton’s lead in the polls.

The chances are increasingly likely, then, that the next Australian government will be a Liberal-National Coalition. And that should scare the shit out of you, because Dutton, along with National Party Leader David Littleproud, are already incorporating Trump’s talking points into their pre-campaign campaign speeches. Dutton’s happily planning his own Aussie version of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, complete with a purge of any government employee who might conceivably fall into some fictitious “diversity, equity, and inclusion” category. You know, like Indigenous representatives in organisations dealing with Indigenous issues, or asking disabled folk for their lived experience.

And don’t think you can comfort yourself with, “oh it’s just rhetoric”, “oh, they’ll never be able to do that, we’re not America”, or any one of a dozen self-soothing mantras I’ve seen bandied around. Because, yeah, we’re not America – which means we don’t have half the legislative and constitutional rights and protections Americans took for granted right up until Trump and Musk started bulldozing their way through. Dutton and Littleproud could carry out the things they’re promising, and all they need is a majority in both houses to do it.

So what’s the solution? It’s not to simply refuse to participate. We can see the trajectory Australia will take just by looking across the pond at our big brother, and that in no small part it happened because the left stayed home and refused to vote for a Democrat who – like Albo – was too cowardly to take a stand. In Australia, we don’t have the option of refusing to vote, but there are plenty of people already talking semi-seriously about “protest voting”, writing in “Mickey Mouse”, or just handing in a blank ballot. Because that’ll show them. Yeah.

Let’s be perfectly blunt here. If you’re on the left wing of politics, and you refuse to participate, you are a de facto Liberal voter, and you will be responsible for everything that happens after the election.

We need to use the advantage we have – time. If you’re not happy with your local MP refusing to take a stand to condemn genocide or support Indigenous folk, tell them so. Get your voice out there. Be a Karen, for god’s sake. Let the Prime Minister, Penny Wong, Peter Dutton, and every MP and Senator you can find on all sides of politics know that you expect more of them than weasel words. Make sure they understand that your vote depends on them taking a stand against hate and division.

Educate yourself on minor parties and Independents, especially those running for Senate seats. These politicians are not bound by the lockstep loyalty of the major parties, and tend to be responsive to the concerns of prospective voters.

(Shameless self-promotion moment: along with my co-author Loki, I’ll be delving into the policies of as many politicians as I can get my hands on once the election’s called, over at Something for Cate.)

And for the love of everything holy, when the day comes, VOTE. Vote smart, vote below the line, vote for the candidates who remember what it is to be decent human beings.

Or at least, vote against those who don’t.

The death of democracy in the USA is a terrible thing to watch, but it’s also a cautionary tale for us. It’s one we need to learn from, and we need to start doing that today.

We still have time – but it’s later than you think.