Many Australians will be surprised that voters across the US could cast a vote for Donald Trump after a (poorly) attempted coup on January 6, 2021. The only reason we might find this shocking is because we don’t talk about the Dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 as what it really was – a successful coup.
Many will be surprised that voters across the US could cast a vote for Donald Trump after a (poorly) attempted coup on January 6, 2021. Australian history shows that notions of representative democracy aren’t really top of mind for many voters. Just like in Australia in 1975, economic issues dominated the 2024 US election, despite the attempted ouster of a democratically elected government. Additionally, there are plenty of voters for whom January 6 actually looks like a defence of democracy – and that was also true in 1975 Australia. The only reason we might find this shocking is because we don’t talk about the Dismissal as what it really was – a successful coup.
This is not a new idea. Gough Whitlam himself referred to the events as a coup. Paul Keating continues to do so. A few journalists such as Guy Rundle, John Pilger and Andrew Fowler all use the term, along with a small fraction of the political left. But in wider Australian society the idea does not seem to have much purchase. The reason this is so strange is that the events objectively fit the definition of a coup.
The widely accepted academic definition of a coup is the “illegal........