Trump's dictatorship is a fait accompli
What can Americans do? What should Australia do?
A few weeks ago, I drew up a flowchart to estimate the probability that Trump would establish a dictatorship in the US, which looked, at the time, like an even money bet.
We don’t need to speculate any more. Trump has announced the dictatorship, and there is no sign of effective resistance. The key elements so far include
Extremists announced for all major positions, with a demand that they be recess appointments, not subject to Senate scrutiny
A state of emergency from Day 1, with the use of the military against domestic opponents
Mass deportations, initially of non-citizens and then of “denaturalised” legal immigrants
A third term (bizarrely, the nervous laughter that greeted this led to it being reported as a joke).
A comprehensive purge of the army, FBI and civil service
It’s clear that Trump will face no resistance from the Republican party. There’s an outside chance that the Supreme Court will constrain some measures, such as outright suppression of opposition media, but that won’t make much difference.
It’s possible that Trump will overreach in some way, such as carrying out his threat to execute political opponents before the ground is fully prepared. Or, his economic policies may prove so disastrous that even rigged elections can’t be won. But there is no good reason to expect this.
I can’t give any hopeful advice to Americans. The idea of defeating Trump at the next election is an illusion. Although elections may be conducted for some time, the outcome will be predetermined. Street protest might be tolerated, as long as it is harmless, but will be suppressed brutally if it threatens the regime. Legal action will go nowhere, given that the Supreme Court has already authorised any criminal action Trump might take as president.
The models to learn from are those of dissidents in places like China and the Soviet Union. They involve cautious cultivation of an alternative, ready for the opportunity when and if it comes.
For Australia, the easy, and wrong, course of action will be to pretend that nothing has happened. But in reality, we are on our own. Trump is often described as “transactional”, but this carries the implication that having made a deal, he sticks to it. In reality, Trump reneges whenever it suits him, and sometimes just on a whim. If it suits Trump to drag us into a war with China, he will do it. Equally, if he can benefit from leaving us in the lurch, he will do that
Our correct course is to disengage slowly and focus on protecting ourselves. That means a return to the policy of balancing China and the US, now with the recognition that there is nothing to choose between the two in terms of democracy. We need to back out of AUKUS and focus on defending ourselves, with what Sam Roggeveen has called an “echidna” strategy - lots of anti-ship missiles, and the best air defences we can buy, from anyone willing to supply them.
I’ll be happy to be proved wrong on all this.
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I don't see any value in rehashing what the Democrats got wrong. As the flowchart suggests, a better strategy might have staved off disaster for a while, but a country where half the population are willing to vote for a fascist is bound to fail sooner or later.
The naivety and complacency of the Australian political class has been thrown into sharp relief with the election of Trump.
To think we so recently casually threw our lot in with such an unstable and mendacious regime via AUKUS is beyond the typical Australian governmental incompetence. This is peak farce worthy of Utopia and Fawlty Towers rolled into one giant shitshow.
OK, so Morrison did get his smirking mug on a stage with the US President, plus a grift for life and a wedge against Labor. The Defence crowd got elevated in the national consciousness plus more taxpayer funded jollies to the US and (probably not) some secondhand nuclear submarines. Hapless Albo got to look tough for a few months and keep Marles and his Victorian faction happy.
Meanwhile, the poor old taxpayer has to bail out the recurring stupidity of our political class for a crude protection racket that signs away our sovereignty and sets us on collision course with our largest trading partner.
I agree with your assessment that we need to immediately, but quietly disengage from AUKUS and adopt a neutral defence posture. The more likely outcome is our idiotic ruling class will double-down in order to look tough, perceiving that the lesson from the US is that the strongman prevails. Acquiescence once again confused with independence and weakness masquerading as strength.