How to avoid a Trumpian Australia

A new report shows that Australia may be able to avoid the chaos evident in Trump’s America but we are running out of time, writes Dr Bronwyn Kelly.

IN AUSTRALIA TODAY, there is mounting concern that we might be exposed to the sort of social and democratic decline so obviously on display in America under President Donald Trump.

A recently published, major evidence-based report from Australian Community Futures Planning (ACFP), The State of Australia 2025, indicates that we are indeed exposed to such a fate. It shows where and how we are most vulnerable to a U.S.-style breakdown in social cohesion, personal safety, rights, and freedoms.

Broadly, the report shows that Australia is most exposed due to:

growth in inequality — especially political inequality and inequality of opportunity;
a lack of human rights;
an increasingly secretive and unaccountable apparatus of government that operates at a very unhealthy distance from the expressed wishes of Australians for peace, safety and security;
a corporate sector intent on attacking participation by Australians in their own economy and democracy;
a succession of governments that have refused to specify and abide by decent ethical standards in their decision-making;
slavish idolatry of a failed economic system — neoliberalism (a system of grand theft by the few from the many);
an apparent vulnerability to divisive dogma about other cultures and ethnic groups (in other words, a vulnerability to racist tropes); and
a system of governance which has offered neither equal suffrage, nor a reasonable share of power for the people, nor a process by which trust can be established in parliaments and governments.

Trump's anti-democratic mindset mirrors that of Hitler

Comparing Trump to Hitler is not about equating their crimes but recognising similar patterns of demagoguery and democratic decay.

The combination of these factors is extremely dangerous, especially at a time when a growing number of other countries are falling prey to the same divisive influences and declining into forms of neo-fascism.

Our own decline is evident in literally hundreds of indicators provided in the report about our social cohesion, individual health and well-being, environmental sustainability, economic resilience, democratic inclusion, and security in the face of growing international conflict and climate change. Detailed evidence for this is provided in Chapters 7 to 10.

Nevertheless, options for a better future are still open to us. Chapter 12 of the full report summarises features of the decline in our fortunes over recent decades in 20 of the areas where remedial action is most urgent if we wish to restore the chance of a better future. It then examines what continuing poor performance in those areas implies for our capacity to restore our fortunes and sifts out actions that can give us the best chance of reversing our current trajectory of decline.

The evidence is that the areas where we are likely to have the most capacity to reverse current trends of decline and stave off a Trumpian chaos are in relation to:

growing inequality and poverty;
loss of rights, open governance and transparency;
exclusion from participation in our own democracy;
unethical governance;
economic decline;
inertia in decarbonisation;
loss of social cohesion; and
declining well-being and happiness.

These are all areas where policy choices are still largely within our control and we are still free to make the necessary better choices to reverse our poor trends of performance. Matters there are not yet completely out of hand. They are very close to being (if not already) out of hand in other areas, such as climate change.

Trump’s overreach making the world finally see the Right

The extreme nature of Donald Trump's presidency ought to serve as a wake-up call to Western democracies and those who take them for granted.

But in the above-listed areas, we still have full capacity – human and financial – to restore and secure our well-being. We can quite easily abandon failed policies there.

Overall, the evidence in The State of Australia 2025 is that our social cohesion and quality of life are not yet so broken that conditions are being set for the sort of democratic upheavals being experienced in America. But the report also shows that it could be headed that way if failed economic policies are not reversed, especially if Australia’s Constitution continues to accord almost no rights to the people of Australia and no obligation on governments to respect and uphold those rights.

This is a particular area of weakness for Australians. In America, where they have human rights inscribed in their Constitution, Trump and his billionaire friends and enablers in the Project 2025 movement have had to work incessantly and spend billions over the last decade to succeed in their program of trashing the rights of Americans and all their democratic institutions.

In Australia, the Constitution is silent on all but a few rights and doesn’t even accord Australians security of their right to vote. Our Constitution presents no barrier at all to those who would trash our rights and democracy. This means that if we wish to prevent a Trumpian Australia, the Constitution needs a holistic reform to establish a democracy of political equals before we lose all chance of doing so.

Most, if not all, of our options as an Australian community for securing a better future are a matter of choice. As yet, there is nothing to prevent us from freely choosing these options and it is not too late to invoke them.

Nothing about either our present standard of living or our prospects as a nation for a better future needs to be sacrificed if Australians act together to make the better future they have repeatedly said they want a reality. The critical success factor is the timing of the choice. The window is closing. Soon it will be too late for the choices to be effective, particularly against climate change.

Australia's autonomy from the U.S. has never been more vital

Never has there been a greater need for Australia to end its military alliance with the U.S. and forge an independent and peaceful foreign policy.

Despite the nearness of more decline, a full-on collapse of our society and dreams of a decent future is not something that is inevitable for Australians. The depressing expectations set out in Chapter 12 of The State of Australia 2025 are not some ineluctable force of destiny. If we arrive there it will be because we chose to when we knew it need not be. It will be because we chose policies that we knew would hurt us in the long run.

Given that we are running out of time to secure a better future, Australians need an efficient way of participating in their democracy. Relying on politicians isn’t going to cut it, especially if those we elect borrow all their ideas and talking points from the dismal swamp of U.S. and UK politics, without regard to their usefulness for the safety and prosperity of Australians. Or if they continue to select neoliberal and other undemocratic policies that we now know haven’t worked and won’t work to secure a future of well-being.

This means we need to do more than simply change who is in parliament and in government every three years. We need to change the agendas of parliaments and governments by telling them which agendas we would prefer.

ACFP’s research suggests that that can only be conveyed coherently in the form of a long-term integrated national plan that is crafted by the people of Australia themselves and strategies within that plan must be selected based not on politics or ideology but on their potential to drive us towards the better future we aspire to and away from a Trumpian catastrophe.

This efficient form of democratic participation is not beyond the capacity of Australians. Find out more about how to become involved here.

Dr Bronwyn Kelly is the Founder of Australian Community Futures Planning (ACFP). She specialises in long-term integrated planning for Australia’s society, environment, economy and democracy, and in systems of governance for nation-states.