Donald Trump’s bruising return to the White House has sent many longtime foreign allies scrambling to get their distance, and according to a new piece from The Atlantic, that distance will last long after Trump is gone.
Trump’s second term as president has been marked by notable and widespread disrespect toward nations once seen as close U.S. allies. Between his attempts to level massive tariffs against nearly every nation in the world and his frequent breaches of diplomatic norms, Trump has created a hostile global environment in which allies no longer feel safe trusting in the stability of the U.S.
In a new piece for The Atlantic on Tuesday, staff writer Vivian Salama argued that this new dynamic, in which the nations of the world are working to establish a safe distance from the U.S., is bound to become the new normal for years to come, even after Trump leaves office and is potentially replaced by a more traditional, dependable administration.
I’m in Australia, and yes, far right idiocy happens here too. But in this country our electoral system keeps the wackos contained. We have compulsory preferential voting. Elections here are decided by the middle, not the extremities.
That’s what we thought too…
Our two electoral systems couldn’t be more different. For a start in ours the politicians aren’t allowed to draw electoral boundaries.
We all thought our constitution had some pretty good checks and balances too. But boy…money talks
Those mostly turned out to just be gentleman’s agreements. As an Americsn, it seems Australia and other countries may have actually put these things into laws with consequences. Sounds nice
Ah, the cockiness.
US also has laws and this administration simply ignores, because there’s no one to enforce them. The reason for it is that people who could enforce them are either on board with the new world order or are blackmailed, the ones that would stop it were purged from the government during DOGE stage (they likely also found more blackmail material, through use of LLM).
It is crazy what can be done with help of foreign governments and the richest people on earth.
They are interested in changing the world not just the US, seems like biggest attention right now is put on Germany and France, but this effort is placed everywhere.
People born in a democracy take it for granted as if this is something inevitable, when in reality democracy is very fragile and requires constant work to blossom.
Thinking “we are safe” is how it happened in US, Hungary, Poland, Turkey. And historically Weimar Republic was a democracy until Hitler took over.
No constitution can protect you from voting for an absolute buffoon.
The constitution is a piece of paper. It’s the ones in power that enforce it, and you gave all the power to a clown.
In our case, it’s not the constitution. It’s a result of long running electoral reform. in essence, political parties nor politicians can fuck with the electoral system nor boundaries. It’s run by an independent commission. Parties are welcome to make a submission suggesting change, evenake a case for change, but if it doesn’t match the set criteria, they get shut down. Unlike your states who can redraw boundaries to pick their voters.
Do those independent commissions have their own military? If not, they can be ignored.
Of course, institutions and constitutions can protect against some power. But at the end of the day, whoever has the police and military on their side has the last word.
If democracies don’t often end up as military dictatorships is because people usually vote for parties that at least say they are pro-constitution and pro-independent institutions. Therefore the military ends up in the hands of someone that values those independent institutions.
But if you give the power on purpose to a party that openly claims they don’t give a shit about the rule of law, you get the USA.
As I said, constitutions and independent entities only have power if the ones in charge of the military (the ultimate power source) follow the constitution and the law voluntarily.
does it ? As an Australian i’d call this take woefully misguided. We elect an endless litany of wackos and nut jobs.
For example, many pundits are suggesting an ONP electoral win and we have our wackos in Government including the LNP.
Remember those asshats holding a lump of coal and laughing about the outcome for the Pacific Islands? we elected one of them as Prime Minister, the same one that then shit in France’s pocket, like Trump is doing to his “friends”
Our talk on immigration is as tough as the US BUT its across ALP, LNO and ONP so most voters are obviously Ok with it, we place refugees in off shore detention centres, many commiting suicide, like the much maligned Alligator Alcatraz in the US. The ALP has literally said they are going to hunt down visa overstayers, like ICE do in the US now. Our phones can be searched anywhere, Americans are in horror about phone searched at the border that’s just a small sample.
the only difference is the size of the stage, ours is insignificant in the world and no one pays any attention, (including apparently Australians) to our endless hate and stupidity.
As to our electoral system, calling bullshit on that, the US has primaries where they vote on candidates and have some say, we have precisely zero choice in that respect. The US has the state base electoral college, that supposed to be there stop big states bullying smaller states by having more representatives ie more people = more votes (aka democracy), we have something similar with our senate having the same number of senators for each state, Tassie (with less population then the the Gold Coast) having the same number of senators as NSW. They do have issues over donor contributions (PACs etc) but so do we, who do you think is bank rolling the ONP? The Greens have long warned of this (and climate change) and been ignored by voters.
We are not good, we’re a petro state hell bent on destroying the planet with our greed and most everything we do makes Australia and the world a worse place.
That’s a positive, but IMO the fundamental issue is engagement-driven social media stoking extremist populism. If voters radicalize, especially in one direction, no voting system will protect you from that.
We… well, I was gonna was we realized it too late in the US, but we never really figured it out, and now we never will.
You folks need to neuter US social media as fast as you can. Cut the undersea cables, if you have to.
For now, but far right ideology shouldn’t be contained, it should be quashed. The US is a great example of what happens when it isn’t.
Also, the rise in far right ideologies across multiple countries should be a global concern. If one country under fascist control can cause significant damage to Australia imagine the effect of 4 or 5 scattered across the world.
Can’thappen here, also what we thought.
Thanks for the tip, but get your own house in order before lecturing everyone else. To date, we are good.
This is dangerous thinking. This is exactly what I’m talking about.
Complacency and overconfidence is precisely how fascism rises, historically.
Don’t be proud, be afraid. Look at the tire fires overseas as motivation to squash the embers in Australia now. Your election system alone will not protect you from it.