Australians, like people the world over who care about democracy and global security, really should get a vote in the forthcoming US election, so critical is it to our geopolitical and strategic interests.
We won’t. But not to worry. For decades we’ve been resolutely assured it’s the historic strength of the US-Australia alliance, not who’s president, that really counts.
Right now, in a likely contest between incumbent Joe Biden and presumed Republican candidate Donald Trump, it’s hard not to feel anxious about the November result.
But no – breathe out. Relax. Trump or Biden? Our leaders will work with whoever.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese is not splitting the diplomatic atom when he reiterates such sentiment, expressed by successive Australian leaders (government and opposition) since the inception of the alliance bedrock, the Anzus treaty, in 1951.
For the most part (despite significant Australian social and political disquiet around the alliance during the Vietnam war and later over the Howard government’s totally unjustified Middle East military adventurism in George W Bush’s footsteps) the political assurance has not wavered. Democrat and Republican administrations have worked closely with Labor and Coalition administrations. Personalities have not overly impeded that.
Notwithstanding that Albanese as PM has forged close personal and professional ties with Biden, he has stated the Australia-US playbook it-don’t-matter-who’s-president position many times.
It usually goes something like this: “Well, the relationship between Australia and the United States is not a relationship between just leaders or individuals. It’s a relationship built on our common values and our view of the world. Two great democracies working together … the election in the United States is a matter for the people of the United States, and we certainly will respect whatever decisions are made. But this is a relationship between nations, not just between two leaders. As good as the relationship that I have with President Biden is.”
Two great democracies working together …
If Trump (incarnate of perhaps the heaviest threat to American democracy and its institutions since the civil war, not to mention global stability) is re-elected, surely he somewhat takes the shine off that supposed greatness, at least as it applies to American democracy. Trump and the Maga movement bang on vacuously, endlessly about making the US that great again. But he has little real demonstrated attachment to democracy (as evidenced by his baseless challenge to the legitimacy of the 2020 vote and incitement of the 2021 attack on Congress, his sycophantic pandering to dictators and his stated intent of being one).
Oh, he was joking, right? It’s often hard to tell with the seriously, narcissistically unhinged. But none the less, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we? Respect and work with him as a regurgitated leader of the free world because, after all, it’s the alliance that ultimately matters and secures us.
The personal matters too. There are his lies, cynical and pathological, the incubatory base of a virulent, post-truth politics that is a cancer on the same faltering US democracy.
Now, all of this is before we really get to the potentially disastrous threat a re-elected nativist, anti-alliance Trump poses to global security and, on a more micro level, Australia’s national strategic and security interests.
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Numerous episodes in isolationist Trump’s first presidency and his latest dangerous attack on the US’s Nato allies (set against his likely unbridled, unqualified support for Russia in the war against Ukraine, and Israel against Hamas in Gaza) should render any America he leads as a source of deep suspicion to other supposed allies, not least Australia. Trump personally would be a reckless, unstable, unpredictable ally. Never mind what havoc he might wreak on the Aukus submarine/security pact (a good argument if ever there was for greater Australian military independence) and how incendiary his bellicose, aggressive instincts might prove to be in the Asia-Pacific, especially regarding China and Taiwan.
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There is, of course, a whole other layer of concern about being so closely allied, with so little qualification, to a global superpower led by someone so mendacious, sexually predatory and allegedly criminal. The company you keep does matter.
Yes, there are serious concerns about Biden’s age and his memory (Trump’s too). But Biden, as an ally and an American leader, is none of the things Trump has been, is and could be again (times multiplied) as president.
The old language at the bedrock of the alliance, effectively that Australia will blithely go all the way if Trump – lying, fantasist, alleged criminal – becomes president, is not only transparently shallow, as the world faces Trump’s possible, even likely, re-election but condescending to Australian voters.
The Australian centre won’t buy unqualified support for the US, come what may, if Trump is re-elected. Neither will many federal legislators across the board.
Western Australia’s former Labor premier Geoff Gallop summed up the sentiment in Australian progressive centre politics on Trump, saying his possible re-election is “the big issue we continue to ignore”.
“It’s seen as too hot to handle, even unpatriotic to consider, but there it is staring us in the face: a nation armed and divided. Sleepwalking into the future is no option. Reality always catches up with those who think otherwise. We need in-depth scenario analysis and some hard talk about what it means for our nation. If not government and its agencies, if not parliament and its members, it could be civil society itself that takes the lead.”
If Trump is re-elected, it will no longer be enough for Australia to be “all the way with the USA” no matter who is president .
Paul Daley is a Guardian Australia columnist
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