Making a virtue of politics driven by common sense

Donald Trump’s election win in the US represents a turning of the tide on the suffocating intolerance of identity politics that has sought to shame detractors into silent compliance. The pushback has resulted in a clean sweep of the progressive front’s holy cows, from transgender rights in women’s sport to an end to fossil fuels.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, the Republicans spent $US123m ($185m) on television ads referencing transgender athletes and Democrat support for sex change operations in prisons. At a rally held in a swing state hours before the poll, Mr Trump said that in all the conversations he had with voters, not one had said their big concern was that men should be allowed to play women’s sport. The punchline in Republican campaign ads was “Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you”.

Rather than the marginal concerns of minority interests, Mr Trump tapped into the aspirational wishes of ordinary people by sharing their fascination with achievement. This included the ability of billionaire backer Elon Musk’s SpaceX to successfully catch the first-stage booster from its new Starship spacecraft with a “giant set of chopsticks” back at the launch pad.

It was a set of interests that saw Mr Trump at home doing hours-long interviews on popular podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience to outflank a hostile media while his opponent, Kamala Harris, refused to do even a regular press conference.

In the end, Mr Trump attracted a broader coalition than during his past two presidential campaigns and appears poised to win the popular vote. He won 45 per cent of Hispanics, 38 per cent of Asians, 54 per cent of Hispanic men and 20 per cent of black men. In 2016 he drew 28 per cent of Hispanics, 27 per cent of Asians, 32 per cent of Hispanic men and 13 per cent of black men.

Millions of Americans who didn’t back Mr Trump in 2016 or 2020 – including some who have never voted for a Republican for president in their lives – cast their ballots for him this year. Rather than be put off by demands that illegal immigration via Mexico be stopped, Mr Trump showed the truth that people were not defined by race but by a shared interest in economic and social security and a sense that, for those wanting to enter the US, there was a right way to go about it, legally.

Mr Trump has declared his win a mandate to “bring common sense” to the US, starting with returning order to the southern border. He said the Democrats had been exposed as out of line with the thinking of the country. Voters knew demands such as defunding the police didn’t work.

It is a lesson for politicians everywhere that economic and social welfare is where to find the election-winning centre ground. The impact of Mr Trump, having read the mood of the US electorate, will now be felt by a disorderly global community.

There are high expectations that he will bring some order to the hostile positioning increasingly being taken by the anti-West axis comprising China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Europe is on notice to sort out its military spending and preparedness.

Ukraine must look more to Europe for an answer to the present conflict with Russia. US attention will continue to shift to the Indo-Pacific, where China is threatened with stiff import tariffs to help boost US manufacturing and to punish Chinese Communist Party overreach.

There are risks as well as opportunities here for Australia. First among the risks is how exposed we will be to a possible trade war involving China and the US that could increase costs for Australian consumers, fuel inflation and test the mutually beneficial reset that the Albanese government has worked for with Beijing.

There are no signs that Mr Trump will pull the US out of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal but he is likely to be less interested in the Quad security grouping of the US, India, Japan and Australia. Anthony Albanese has made personal contact to congratulate Mr Trump on his historic second win.

But there remains a lot of work to do to absorb the political lessons from the Trump victory and to ensure that US-Australia relations are maintained and strengthened as great-power rivalry in our region escalates. Stabilising the personal relationships between the second Trump administration and our ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, will be an important first step.

Mr Trump’s success or failure will be determined in large part by who he has around him. It is a measure of the wrongheaded analysis of Mr Trump’s relationship with women by many on the left that he has appointed Susie Wiles to be his White House chief of staff, the first woman to hold the post.

As Greg Sheridan writes in Inquirer, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo is likely to become defence secretary in the second Trump term. Contenders for secretary of state include Robert O’Brien, Mr Trump’s last national security adviser, and Republican senator Bill Hagerty, who served as Mr Trump’s ambassador to Japan during his first term.

“These three represent the Trump mainstream play,” Sheridan writes. They are tough-minded hawks, focused on China, impatient with US allies such as the European NATO members for not spending enough on defence, but realise Washington needs Europe to cope with China. The critical near-term questions about Mr Trump’s policy are: Ukraine, tariffs, the Middle East, China and North Korea.

There should be no nasty surprises here for Australia. But there are lessons that must be heeded. Chief among them is the folly of overcommitting to progressive agendas that are out of step with what the mainstream expects.

High on this list must be action on climate change in a way that undermines national prosperity as well as economic and energy security. What is kept from the Biden era subsidy-laden Inflation Reduction Act policies by Mr Trump will likely be redirected towards increasing supplies of gas.

Community support for tough action on climate change has fallen since the 2022 federal election. An already weakened environmental, social and governance agenda globally will be pushed further into the background. The political contest in the US and elsewhere has become less about signalling virtue and more about what is the commonsense, practical thing to do.