US election: coverage here has ignored the big issues

Tomorrow’s US election is a fascinating insight into much of what is wrong in modern politics and the media.

For me the big political questions raised by the rise of the anti-establishment candidate Donald Trump have barely been discussed by the Australian media, which has tended to brand Trump and his supporters either as comic book rednecks (Fairfax and the ABC) or heroes standing up against a corrupt system (Sky News night-time hosts and News Corp tabloid columnists).

Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton is similarly caricatured. For the progressive media she is a shining feminist progressive star who can do no wrong. Anyone raising questions about her emails or Clinton Foundation boondoggling is a woman-hating redneck. On the right, she is derided as a criminal figure despite a quarter of a century at the top of the US political tree and the lack of evidence the email scandal in which she is embroiled involves criminality.

Two things that motivate voter discontent in the election that do not receive enough attention in the Australian media are inter­national immigration and the ­failures of big Western economies in the wake of the global financial crisis to make sure the benefits of economic growth trickle down to lower socioeconomic demographics. We saw both factors influence the Brexit vote midyear and the rise of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the federal election four months ago.

Paul Kelly has argued the US will struggle to recover from the divisiveness of this campaign and even if Clinton wins she will be damaged. Many predict impeachment. Greg Sheridan has likened Trump to one-term Depression era president Herbert Hoover for his populist approach to business and politics and the likelihood his proposed solutions will only damage those Americans who support him. Both commentators expect a Clinton win, but I am not so sure.

Her campaign is better funded and the full, formidable Democrat on-the-ground campaign machine is behind her. The Republican machine is not running the same strategic game for Trump and he has not raised the sort of money Clinton has. Yet his use of free media is unparalleled.

As this column has noted several times this year, the last British general election and the Brexit vote raised the spectre of people with unfashionable views refusing to admit to pollsters that they intend to vote for the unfashionable candidate. The polling momentum has swung to Trump, who is likely to pick up supporters who have refused to self identify.

Why has the world’s richest and most powerful country been left with two such poor candidates for the most powerful job on the planet?

It takes great rhetorical skill to advocate for good public policy in the crucial issues of immigration and economic globalism in the present media environment, where negative attacks reap great rewards. The natural reaction of the losers of globalisation is to call for trade barriers.

It is difficult to explain to angry voters that it was exactly this ­reaction that exacerbated the Great Depression. It is even more difficult to make poor voters in crime-ridden areas struggling to find work care about the successes of globalisation. In China, India, Southeast Asia, South America and parts of Africa literally billions of people have been lifted out of poverty.

Similarly it is difficult to explain to working-class Americans, or indeed regional Australians, why high immigration rates might actually be good for a country’s economy and might stimulate growth in home building and retail sales. In a world that fears international terrorism the impulse to shut the gate is understandably strong.

This newspaper has always supported high levels of immigration. But it has argued that for the national consensus in favour of immigration to be maintained governments need to maintain control. This was the great public policy failure of the Rudd and ­Gillard governments: 50,000 self-selecting asylum seekers arriving by boat and 1200 deaths at sea.

The progressive media does not want to hear this, but across Europe and North America the rise of Islamic jihadism and the wave of asylum-seekers arriving by boat from Syria, after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ­foolish decision to accept a million refugees, have threatened support for immigration worldwide. This was a deciding factor in Brexit and is dominating politics in the US, Germany and France.

In an increasingly partisan media world, these very understandable fears are manipulated by the left progressive media into a source for moral scorn against the less privileged in society. In conservative media such fears are used to drive scepticism about ­immigration.

So last week we saw the ludicrous revival of Kevin Rudd, the architect of the present detention regimes in Manus and Nauru, in the Fairfax press to criticise ­proposed Turnbull government changes that would forever prevent those asylum-seekers visiting Australia.

If even media leaders are failing to explain the complexities of the modern world, it is hard not to sympathise with voters alienated by the advocacy shortcomings of so many political leaders in the face of such difficult problems. Witness the revolving door of prime ministers here since 2007.

In my view the US system has so many checks and balances, and so much momentum, it is likely both candidates would prove ­better presidents than expected. Clinton has wanted the job her whole life, has been a long-term senator, secretary of state and first lady.

Trump critics should reflect on the predictions made about Ron­ald Reagan before his election. Not only did he surprise his critics, the former B-grade actor proved himself one of the great US presidents. Voters around the world are rejecting leaders unable to articulate a vision for the future whose main preoccupation seems to be personal ambition.

It may be impossible in the current media environment dominated by selfies and social media to find leaders who stack up morally in the way a Reagan or a Thatcher on the right did or a John F. Kennedy, Tony Blair or Paul Keating on the progressive side at least seemed to at the time.

But that is what voters want, and surely moral probity should not be too much to expect in a national leader, especially the leader of the free world.