Trump Australia impact
Just over a year ago, in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, I wrote that the world was on the precipice of a reversion to nationalist, isolationist policy agendas more in line with the pre-war era, and that Australia was not immune from the circumstances that led to Trump 2.0v. The point was that as politics becomes increasingly underpinned by division, rhetoric matters – it’s not ornamental, but foundational. It shapes incentives, redraws norms, and ultimately acts as a call to action.
These arguments were not particularly new or novel, but they have, for the best part of the last decade, been met with a familiar refrain. That the reaction to Trump’s rhetoric is overblown. That he just says things without meaning them. That long-standing institutions would hold. That he would deliver what he promised his constituents. That even if not, whatever seismic shift was unfolding in the United States would remain contained there, too distant to meaningfully affect Australia.
It’s worth revisiting those assumptions now. Trump Australia impact
As the widest and most consequential conflict in generations unfolds in the Middle East, the world is, by most assessments, entering what could become an equally significant global economic downturn. Even in just a few weeks, markets have not merely corrected, but have convulsed under the weight of policy uncertainty, trade fragmentation, and the erosion of long-standing institutional safeguards.
None of this has occurred in a vacuum. It’s the first real global conflict in the social media age, and the first victim has been regulatory independence. Sinister commodities trading and Polymarket betting patterns have emerged – in parallel with Trump’s market-moving posts on Truth Social and X. Days before the attack, Trump’s oldest sons invested in companies that make AI-driven drones; Bloomberg reports that the duo have made hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump Australia impact
Yet US securities regulators have remained silent, either paralysed by fear or infiltrated by those seeking favour. And it’s not a surprise: as political discourse over the last decade has normalised distrust in institutions like courts, regulators and electoral systems, it has created both the justification and the public tolerance for weakening them – now, to the point of ineffectiveness.
It could previously be theorised – even rationalised – that Trump would do anything to appease his base, even if it meant abandoning the majority of the country that he is also required to govern and protect. Yet Trump’s war is self-evidently against the interests of not just his base, but billions of people, far removed from the initial theatre of conflict, who find themselves paying the price – at the petrol pump, at the supermarket, in higher interest repayments, in diminished job security. Indeed, the only ones who stand to benefit from the conflict are those who already have it all.
And this brings the argument back home.
The rise of One Nation – which has torn swathes of support from the fumbling Liberal Party – needs to be understood in the context of the broader shift that was long foretold by Trump’s return to power. One Nation’s anti-elite, anti-institution, selectively populist agenda echoes the same currents that have reshaped politics elsewhere.
Just like the increasingly fractured MAGA movement, One Nation’s voting record runs counter to the economic interests of the very constituents it claims to represent, historically opposing measures that would materially improve living standards while amplifying narratives of cultural grievance.
This dissonance is not accidental – the party’s policy cabinet is quite bare – but by pushing cultural or identity-based conflict rather than economic, policy substance becomes secondary. Overlay this with the role of media, and the picture sharpens further.
Changes in media ownership at home and abroad, alongside both the intentional and consequential erosion of regulatory independence, have reshaped the information landscape. In the US, a Trump-aligned FCC chairman is at the centre of a bid to re-align CNN’s political leanings. The Pentagon initially evicted some, then all reporters, from its quarters. The White House openly disparages and revokes the credentials of journalists who report negatively on the administration.
In Australia, the Murdoch press continues to control the vast majority of print and digital news platforms. Other billionaires, including Kerry Stokes, Bruce Gordon and Gina Rinehart own much of the balance. Digital platforms regulation remains inadequate and slow-moving, incapable of keeping up with the rapid ubiquity of artificial intelligence.
The cumulative effect is not always overt bias, but a narrowing of the space in which genuine scrutiny can occur. Trump Australia impact
While Australia is privileged to enjoy some of the most robust democratic and regulatory institutions in the world, it’s abundantly clear that we are not insulated from the effects when those institutions fail elsewhere.
It means when we ignore warning signs like systemic changes in political rhetoric, or dismiss as hysteria any concern raised about the direction of global political discourse, we fail to prepare for what is headed our way – as already appears to be the case.
None of this is to suggest inevitability. Democracies are not destined to fail, nor are economic crises preordained.
But 12 months ago, it was possible – if optimistic – to view these trends as containable or ephemeral. Today, that optimism is harder to sustain. Trump Australia impact
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