No journalist knows if Donald Trump will succeed or fail in his second term as president.
The New York Times remains unhinged about Trump, still two months out from his inauguration. The masthead has been mad since before he won the 2016 election.
Conversely, in conservative media, Trump is already being hailed as the usher of world peace and slayer of the global “woke” agenda.
Here, some political writers have forecast problems for Australia, especially based on Trump’s tariff pledges against China. Critics point to his more controversial nominees – now withdrawn Matt Gaetz as attorney-general, intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard, health boss Robert Kennedy Jr and defence chief Pete Hegseth.
Yet all were nominated in areas that need change agents. Trump’s first term and the last three years under President Joe Biden have been marked by the politicisation of Democrat legal jurisdictions and federal intelligence agencies – all designed to destroy Trump.
Americans have now voted to fix the system.
Could we use change agents here? Given the inability of our military bureaucracy to secure large defence projects or our immigration officials to meet commitments to reduce migration, would fresh thinking from outside the defence and immigration establishments be a reasonable idea?
It may be worse at our federal Treasury, where climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion seem to take precedence over good economic policy.
Similarly, political journalists mock the idea the Coalition could win government by appealing to formerly working class outer suburban areas of our major cities, once Labor strongholds.
In the US the Republican Party, once the home of big business, now attracts America’s working classes who increasingly see the Democrats as the party of big city elites.
This column, which forecast Trump’s latest win and twice before the 2016 poll argued Trump could win then, argued the week after that election that the Democrats had not been helped by celebrity endorsements. Yet the Democrats rolled out a who’s who of Hollywood and the music industry to support Kamala Harris.
Former Rolling Stone magazine political correspondent Matt Taibbi on Substack on November 7 mused about the Democrats’ reaction in 2016. Hillary Clinton, with zero self-awareness, said: “I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product. The places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward.”
No wonder traditional mid-western Democrat supporters went for Trump. Two days before that election, on November 7, 2016, this column said out of control immigration and poverty outside America’s major cities could swing voters Trump’s way.
The same factors were in play earlier this month, but with the added rebellion of mainstream Americans against the Democrats’ wholesale adoption of identity politics from Black Lives Matter, through to Defund the Police, and transgender activism.
Readers interested in the election’s cultural dynamics should look at the Republican ad with the tagline, “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you”. An excellent essay on Substack by Julie Szego – shunned by The Age in Melbourne for writing the truth about the trans movement – highlights how out of touch the Democrats have become.
Back to Trump’s controversial nominations. Media critics have pointed to a seeming anomaly in the role of Tesla founder Elon Musk as a reformer of the US bureaucracy for the incoming administration. How can Trump impose a 60 per cent tariff on goods from China when most Teslas sold in the US are made in China? It finally occurred to the New York Times on Thursday (AEDT) that Trump’s position may be a bargaining chip. A piece headed “Is Trump more flexible on China than his hawkish cabinet picks suggest?” observed the appointment of Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary and overseer of the Office of the US Trade Representative may mean Trump wants a deal with China on tariffs.
Many in the media have slammed the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr as health secretary, even though he has promised not to block vaccination programs. A look at the big picture in US health might shed light on why Trump chose him.
Oliver Wiseman on The Free Press website last Wednesday wrote that almost 40 per cent of Americans have pre-diabetes. Three quarters are overweight to obese. More than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year. US life expectancy plateaued in 2022 at 77.5 years, the same as in 2004 and about five years less than other similar countries. So while RFK has views outside the mainstream, his central idea – Make America Healthy Again – has appeal.
Gaetz withdrew on Friday as the nominee for attorney-general in the face of allegations against him in a House ethics investigation. Wednesday’s revelation that Defence Department nominee Pete Hegseth paid a woman a settlement in 2017 raises questions about whether he was open and honest with Trump’s team.
Even if he too is not ultimately appointed, the initial selections of Hegseth and Gaetz sent a message that Trump means reform.
Tom Homan, Trump’s proposed border tsar, has been criticised for saying he would deport whole families. He now promises to focus on individual illegal immigrants. But no one doubts he has the credentials to succeed in securing the US’s southern border.
This column welcomes the appointment of US fracking pioneer Chris Wright as energy secretary. Wright is correct to point to rapidly expanding CO2 emissions in China and India and the failure of global decarbonisation policies for 30 years to reduce atmospheric CO2.
The nominations of Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel may force Hamas to return its Israeli hostages and bring its backers in Qatar and Iran to their senses in trying to reach a peace deal. Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have failed miserably on that front.
The nomination of Florida congressman Mike Waltz as national security adviser will only help strengthen the new administration’s dealings in the Middle East and Ukraine. A former Green Beret, Waltz, 50, is already a highly rated member of the Armed Services, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees of the House.
Given Trump’s background in reality TV, his nomination of former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon, sounds like parody. But Americans are fed up with the federal department’s application of politically correct curriculum demands on state-run educations systems. Much like in Australia.
McMahon was secretary for small business in the first Trump administration and is likely to have wide public support.
The Washington Post was critical last week of the rumoured nomination of Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health, suggesting his views on Covid were “contrarian” in 2020.
Yet four year later these views look mainstream, and former health boss Anthony Fauci has told congress many of his Covid rules were guesses.
Many US voters see the pre-Covid Trump era as a time of prosperity and record employment of African-Americans. They are willing to give their new president a fair shot at the job. It’s the democracy left-wing journalists claimed to be defending.
BBC apologises to staff over Russell Brand sex complaints
Some employees had stayed silent about the behaviour of the comedian and actor because they believed he ‘would always get his way’, a BBC director said.
Questions about ABC platforming ‘radical fringe Jewish voice’
Jewish groups have questioned why the national broadcaster has chosen to platform and ‘mainstream’ a Jewish ‘radical fringe voice’, in its coverage of anti-Semitic events in Sydney.