We need to learn from Trump’s rise and fall

Donald Trump was ‘never going to accept he was a loser’. Picture: AFP

It was a close-run thing. Had Donald Trump succeeded in his campaign to negate a legitimate election result by pressuring officials and Republicans, we would now be describing it as a successful coup d’etat. Joe Biden would have won, but Trump would be in power. That’s what a coup is.

Had he succeeded Trump would right now be boasting of his feat and moving to the next stage of quelling civil disorder and crushing threats to his authoritarian reign. The democratic world would be looking on in horror. As it is, we can best describe Trump’s actions as a failed coup. A brazen, sustained, bad faith attempt to thwart a legitimate democratic result that ultimately failed. Phew.

It’s surprising more people didn’t see the violent conclusion coming. Trump was never going to accept he was a loser; he has a pathological aversion to conceding defeat. When defeat starts to look likely for such people they will say and do anything to wreck the process and deny the result.

But what now? Obviously there are a welter of major questions for Americans to resolve, from whether to convict Trump to how to move the country forward. But there are also important political lessons for Australia in how to avoid ending up with our own authoritarian leader. Here are five.

First, beware hucksters. Australians are pretty good bulldust detectors, and they overwhelmingly saw Trump as a confidence man from the beginning. A bloke who says, as Trump did in 2016, “I will give you everything. I will give you what you’ve been looking for for 50 years” is obviously a top-order scam artist, and manifestly unfit to be in charge of a country. But many Americans fell for the schtick, willing to overlook Trump’s character and scandal-plagued history because he told them what they wanted to hear.

Second, be historically aware. History is replete with examples of how authoritarians come to power. Trump echoed these authoritarian antecedents many times, with his open scorn for democratic processes, his praise for dictators and his demonisation of opponents and the media. When someone says, as Trump did, “I have the right to do whatever I want as President”, that is a five-alarm warning of unfitness for office. On the Right we pride ourselves for 20/20 vision in spotting signs of authoritarianism on the Left, but when it came to the threat from one of our own there were blind spots.

Third, beware the partisan echo chambers. People become more credulous the more they immerse themselves in partisan media that’s to their liking. Over recent decades the media environment in the US fostered this silo-ing effect, and the advent of social media has supercharged the phenomenon. For people in the right-wing silo, the effect was to insulate from uncomfortable truths about Trump, which left them more vulnerable to exploitation.

Fourth, stand up to bullies. Trump’s whole career has been built on using bullying to get his way, and each capitulation is taken as a signal by Trump to go further. Too many people who should have known better stayed silent or downplayed the issue.

Finally, don’t provide fertile grounds for would-be tyrants. Frustration had been building in the US for decades due to policy failures: social rigidities accompanying expanded wealth disparities, cultural and economic anxiety from lax border protection, large-scale immigration and imported labour, and cultural condescension from elites with a diminished attachment to their compatriots. The point is would-be tyrants find it hard to make headway in prosperous and contented societies.

It would be comforting to think the dangers of authoritarianism in the developed world are limited to the US, but that would be a false reading. Yes, in Australia we have institutional barriers to authoritarianism such as our Westminster system of government and compulsory voting, but the risks to democratic processes and institutions are always lurking in our midst. We would be foolish to ignore them.

David Alexander is managing director (federal) at Barton Deakin Government Relations.