Trump’s made nationalism great again, just not in America

How quickly the vibe shift has shifted again.

The populist rightward realignment, heralded by US President Donald Trump’s return to power, has been met internationally with an anti-Trump counterblast.

Illustration by Dionne Gain.Credit: Dionne Gain

Liberation Day, and its cratering effect on global markets. Trump Gaza. The blaming for an horrific air crash over the Potomac River on diversity, equity and inclusion. J.D. Vance’s dalliance with the German far-right in Munich of all places. The mugging of Volodymyr Zelensky in a White House festooned now with golden trophies and gaudy bling. As the Oval Office has come to resemble the honeymoon suite at Caesars Palace, and Trump’s America has invited comparisons with the fall of Rome, small wonder the rest of the world is imposing a form of US isolationism on America itself, and turning away from Washington. Few internationally want to be governed by the writ of Trump’s Sharpie pen, and a presidential signature that looks like the readout from a lie detector.

Culturally, too, we have seen an instant correction to the macho posturing of the MAGA bros. It has come in the form of a Netflix drama, Adolescence, a clanging bell about the dangers of toxic masculinity. The manosphere is no longer so rampant. The release of Adolescence, a fictionalised version of reality TV that tells the story of a British schoolboy who murders his female classmate partly as a result of being exposed to misogyny online, could hardly have been more exquisitely timed.

Casting an eye over the chaotic past few months, as Trump has hurled a meteor-sized wrecking ball at an international order that America itself constructed, it would be tempting to argue that the MAGA form of flag-waving has ignited bursts of nationalism elsewhere.

Just look north of the border, where Trump’s talk of making the Maple Leaf nation America’s 51st state has turned mild-mannered Canadians into tough-talking, elbows-up warriors. But I suspect something subtler is at work. Rather than jingoistic chest-thumping, Trumpism has stirred a stoical civic pride in the things that differentiate individual countries from America.

In France, following the conviction of the far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen on embezzlement charges, there’s been Gallic gratification that the country has a criminal justice system that can lead to the prosecution, and barring from seeking public office for five years, of a demagogic populist who broke the law. Her claim afterwards, in an obvious ventriloquy of America’s felonious president, that she was the victim of a “witch hunt” did not translate well into French.

In Britain, from where I write, it is possible to detect a renewed respect for its 76-year-old king following the antics of the 78-year-old US president, and with it a deeper appreciation for an apolitical head of state. When King Charles invited Zelensky for an audience at Sandringham, days after the Ukrainian president had been mauled by Trump and Vance in the Oval Office, it was widely seen as a quintessentially British “f--- you”. In republican-leaning Canada, too, polls suggest a surge in support for the monarchy since the beginning of the year, partly because this institution sets it apart from America.

At a time when American exceptionalism has become so toxic, a bin fire rather than a beacon, these kind of points of differentiation are considered sacrosanct. Witness, for example, the angry public response to Nigel Farage, Trump’s trans-Atlantic fellow traveller, when he suggested Britain should relax its agricultural standards to allow the import of chlorine-washed chicken from the US.

From countries the world over, we are witnessing a form of mental protectionism as they refuse to relax barriers, physical and philosophical, which hasten their Americanisation. As Trump has sought to destroy the world order, individual countries have asserted their identities more strongly and joined with like-minded nations that share their democratic values.

What of Australia? My sense, even amid an uninspiring election campaign, is that there is a renewed appreciation for the distinctive features of Australian democracy which act as a safeguard against US-style extremism. Ever since returning to Australia from America three years ago, I’ve been extolling the virtues of compulsory and preferential voting, and the value of an independent electoral commission and a non-partisan judiciary. But what I have noticed since the start of the year, whether talking in front of corporate, academic or writers’ festival audiences, is the more vigorous nods of approbation – and often outbreaks of applause – when I launch into my hymn of praise to the Australian democratic model.

What’s also obvious – and, now, much-remarked upon – is how the Trump effect has altered the federal election. On January 20, when Trump was sworn in, Peter Dutton looked like being the beneficiary of the rightward realignment. The Liberal leader seemed to be harnessing the zeitgeist when he spoke supportively of an “anti-woke revolution” occurring globally and proposed swingeing job cuts to the federal bureaucracy and, in another echo of Elon Musk, an end to working from home for public servants. This week’s volte-face on work-from-home, however, speaks of how the political ground has shifted. Even though Dutton’s anti-wokeism unquestionably has “silent majority” resonance, the cut-through jibes of “Dogey Dutton” and “Temu Trump” are an impediment to him reaching The Lodge.

Trump is affecting the Australian election in other ways, too. Politics for the past two years has been a graveyard for incumbents. In 2024, for the first time in history, every government seeking re-election either lost ground or was turfed out of office. Now, at a time of such Trumpian turmoil, incumbency looks more like a valued commodity, which goes some way to explaining the revival in the Albanese government’s fortunes.

My hunch, too, is that Anthony Albanese is being seen in a different light. For all his limitations and presentational shortcomings, he is authentically Australian, and that, for many voters, makes him reassuringly recognisable. At a time when voters are more appreciative of an emphatically Australian democratic model, they seem to be looking more approvingly on an emphatically Australian prime minister.

Nick Bryant is the author of The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself.

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