What can Americans do? What should Australia do?
A few weeks ago, I drew up a flowchart to estimate the probability that Trump would establish a dictatorship in the US, which looked, at the time, like an even money bet.
We don’t need to speculate any more. Trump has announced the dictatorship, and there is no sign of effective resistance. The key elements so far include
- Extremists announced for all major positions, with a demand that they be recess appointments, not subject to Senate scrutiny
- A state of emergency from Day 1, with the use of the military against domestic opponents
- Mass deportations, initially of non-citizens and then of “denaturalised” legal immigrants
- A third term (bizarrely, the nervous laughter that greeted this led to it being reported as a joke).
- A comprehensive purge of the army, FBI and civil service
It’s clear that Trump will face no resistance from the Republican party. There’s an outside chance that the Supreme Court will constrain some measures, such as outright suppression of opposition media, but that won’t make much difference.
It’s possible that Trump will overreach in some way, such as carrying out his threat to execute political opponents before the ground is fully prepared. Or, his economic policies may prove so disastrous that even rigged elections can’t be won. But there is no good reason to expect this.
I can’t give any hopeful advice to Americans. The idea of defeating Trump at the next election is an illusion. Although elections may be conducted for some time, the outcome will be predetermined. Street protest might be tolerated, as long as it is harmless, but will be suppressed brutally if it threatens the regime. Legal action will go nowhere, given that the Supreme Court has already authorised any criminal action Trump might take as president.
The models to learn from are those of dissidents in places like China and the Soviet Union. They involve cautious cultivation of an alternative, ready for the opportunity when and if it comes.
For Australia, the easy, and wrong, course of action will be to pretend that nothing has happened. But in reality, we are on our own. Trump is often described as “transactional”, but this carries the implication that having made a deal, he sticks to it. In reality, Trump reneges whenever it suits him, and sometimes just on a whim. If it suits Trump to drag us into a war with China, he will do it. Equally, if he can benefit from leaving us in the lurch, he will do that
Our correct course is to disengage slowly and focus on protecting ourselves. That means a return to the policy of balancing China and the US, now with the recognition that there is nothing to choose between the two in terms of democracy. We need to back out of AUKUS and focus on defending ourselves, with what Sam Roggeveen has called an “echidna” strategy – lots of anti-ship missiles, and the best air defences we can buy, from anyone willing to supply them.
I’ll be happy to be proved wrong on all this.
John Quiggin 
Unfortunately, John, you are spot on.
Mark Diesendorf
One potential source of instability could be the big egos, erratic politics and eccentric agendas of some of those that Trump has appointed to key posts, such as Musk. Gabbard, RFK Jr, etc.
“I’ll be happy to be proved wrong on all this”
I would like you to be proved wrong, but I’d be surprised if anything you predicted or suggested with this turns out being wrong [deep resigned sigh]
Time to unhitch our wagon from the US train before it goes over the cliff .What chance given that we seem unable to even put much distance between us and Israel right now ? . It would have taken someone like Bernie Sanders to beat Trump , but he could have .That wasn’t to be because the Democrats elites put and end to it . Its what the mainstream left and mainstream right have agreed upon for the last 40 years that is the problem .
An afterthought –
Each US nuclear armed sub has many times the explosive power of all the bombs used in ww2 – including the two nuclear ones dropped . It could be 10 times more.
The thing is, we have an s-ton of lawyers here. Let’s not underestimate the effects of the extreme socialization that happens to federal judges and prosecutors. (Fe, there is no argument that can be made that there is any kind of “emergency.” There isn’t one.) And there isn’t much margin, in either the House or Senate.
It will be rocky for at least 2 years, yes. It isn’t the end though, I don’t think.
I *don’t* want to be wrong.
My theory – which is totally partial and evolving – is that, aside from the crazy primary voters, the voters who voted for him did so for reasons of anger and transactionality – that is, they are very unhappy, they feel ignored generally, they don’t understand that the president doesn’t make the inflation, and they think maybe they are going to get something(s) from him.
When that doesn’t happen, as it probably won’t, since his attention span is short and he is hiring newbies, then who knows. He will be able to do some things quickly and unilaterally – but I doubt they will be things that help any regular people. And perhaps the fever will finally break. (True, it seems that people’s perceptions of economics are colored by partisanship. But otoh, we aren’t talking about that many people, really. He didn’t gain that many people. What happened is, the Left didn’t vote. Another topic.)
Plus, all this time, I’ve been expecting a (true) conservative rebellion – maybe one will finally occur. (This is unlikely, I admit. They’ve seen more than enough, where tf are they?)
There is a debate here as to whether people on that side vote due to economic pain, or to racism. I tend to think it’s the money.
None of this should be read as an excuse, btw. I am very sorry for how this election went, and I hope it will not lead to great suffering.
As to your larger point though, it may well be true that you will be more on your own now. (Who really knows though – there is not much that’s predictable. If it were me, I would change nothing at all, at first.)
Luckily, there are other strong allies, too. Plus, I don’t think the leader of China would want to have a war. I hope not, anyway.
I guess the thing to worry about is, he is subject to manipulation.
Just to clarify something – it’s not that hard here, to say there’s an “emergency.” (I think we are technically in a couple right now, oddly enough. I guess I should pay more attention!)
But there won’t be much if any belief in it, so, I think there will be a lot of pushback. And again, I hope we only have to hold out for 2 years. And Congress can stop him any time it wants. All they have to do is not manage to function, which they half do all the time as it is.
It won’t be pretty though.
I like testable hypotheses so all the power to you on yours.
And, yes, it is a worry what happens in Trumpland and hopefully things will get eaten less hot than Donnie is cooking them up right now.
It will be interesting to see whether he gets his recess appointments – I doubt it. He did not get Scott and now has to make do with Thune. Plus, it now looks as if the majority in the House will be down to a couple of reps, maybe 3 or 4 at best.
Given what a motley crew the House Republicans were/are, I won’t hold my breath about Trump being able to push through a lot of what he wants to do. And I can’t wait for the Republican fiscal hawks to argue their case (as they did when Biden pushed through major agenda items). Plus, the 2026 midterm elections are practically around the corner.
I am certain that a 3rd term is out of the question, even with the current SCOTUS. The 22nd amendment leaves no wiggle room. Whatever Trump fantasizes.
Yes, there will be some round-up of illegal immigrants, maybe even concentration camps (because, Mexico will not welcome the rounded-up folks with open arms), but that, too, will evoke massive reactions and, together with tariffs (and tax cuts) that Trump wants, will roil markets. Financial markets is of course how Trump measures his success and he might be in for a rude awakening. Cue Liz Truss’s shortlived pm-ship. So I think financial markets, and their reactions, will save us. The ultimate guard rail so to speak.
My prediction is that we’ll see considerable volatility in financial markets come January 2025; I have moved my super into cash/term deposits for the time being and will reassess not before February of 2025.
[…] gone further in their alarmism. John Quiggin, who has been mentioned here a few times in the past, has a post yesterday titled “Trump’s dictatorship is a fait accompli,” in which he says that “Trump […]
My response was too long for a comment so I made it a blog post: https://worldisnotenough.org/2024/11/20/dictatorship-in-the-u-s-a/
Yeah I thought the one good thing about Trump is that he’s just a greedy crook, and doesn’t really care about any policies etc, but now I realize thats an incentive to create dictatorship because he wants to stay out of jail.
The US alliance is an illusion. They voted for permanent chaos.
I think we should forget about the US, they made their bed etc etc
We need to focus on our own assets, our wealth of opportunity.
There’s an amazing amount of renewable energy construction happening right now, enormous wind and solar farms happening all over Australia .
We need to focus on the economic advantages of investing in Australia.
And China is the biggest investor in renewable energy – in the future they will be energy sufficient.
We need to move on from culture wars, only the stupid can win those.
“Trump is still the crooked unhinged whackjob he was before Nov. 5, and that’s disturbing enough. But toss in his despotic tendencies and you have reason to be concerned.” – D. Allan Kerr.
Yale history professor Timothy Snyder said that Trump’s nominees to lead the executive branch aren’t just “poor choices.”
“Each of them individually is historically bad,” said Snyder. “But taken together, these are not people who are going to be bad at their jobs in some sort of normal sense. Taken together, these appointments suggest an attempt to actually make the American government dysfunctional, to make it fall apart, to pervert it, to have it do things that it’s not supposed to do until it’s not capable of doing anything at all.”
For instance, Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, regularly amplifies Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. Her role would have her oversee 18 intelligence agencies, but critics—even in the House Intelligence Committee—have drawn attention to the danger of her nomination considering her particular affinity for foreign dictators such as Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
The intention is to render democratic government inoperable and then to dismantle it. You don’t do that unless you have an alternative in mind, namely dictatorship. It’s as simple as that. I tend to say this these days because everything is becoming so blatantly obvious from imminent climate catastrophe to imminent dictatorship.
Dutton, in my view, wants to emulate Trump as far as he is able. People’s true colours come out when an enabler-in-chief takes power.
Hi John,
I’m just making my way through Ann Capling’s “All the way with the USA”, covering the Aus-US FTA from years ago. It quotes you as saying the FTA was about economic integration, not free trade. A fair observation that seems to have been borne out with time.
Given your piece above and advice about disengaging, I wondered what you thought about the US-AUS FTA all these years on? Should Australia be thinking of whether to reconsider the FTA?
We will need to rethink our entire economic relationship with the US
One down, more to go …
Donnie is learning the ways of the world, and the resistance, the hard way. Spending lots of political capital along the way …
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/matt-gaetz-withdraws-as-trump-s-pick-for-attorney-general-20241122-p5kspt.html
The worst aspect of the Trump reign will be the absolute destruction of any climate based initiative in the US. It doesn’t make any sense, economic or otherwise, which is how MAGA will be remembered.
I am ninety years old and so wether I am an optimist or pessimist will not make much difference!
A few days ago Antonio Delgado wrote an opinion piece in the NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/21/opinion/democratic-party-neoliberal.html ) in which he suggested that the answer may be a divorce from NeoLiberalism. He suggests that this may effected at a local community level and may slowly change voter perceptions and expectations.
It is attractive to me, being a fan of Inclusive Growth which says that reducing inequality will stimulate the economy. A move from confrontation to collaboration!
John Homan
Why don’t we discuss that Musk, Bezos & Ellison own more wealth than the bottom HALF of Americans?
Bernie Sanders. Nov 14, 2024. 2 minutes.
Join us at http://www.berniesanders.com
Svante,
We can “discuss” all we like. It makes no difference. The elites have supreme contempt for the general population (us) and complete indifference to our various fates. I do not say this to criticize you in particular. I have discussed, and enjoyed discussing, various political economy topics for years. The problem is that all the discussion in the world makes no difference, while it remains mere discussion. Until “the people”, that hard to define but definitely real group, take direct action, nothing will change.
The people of flooded Valencia met the president, king and queen of Spain with a light barrage of mud and stones. That’s a start in a way, but ultimately ineffective. It also borders on violence when mass non-violent, non-cooperation (that is non-cooperation in the elites’ agendas and direct action for the people’s agendas) is much more effective and harder for the authorities to deal with. Until I see such a mass movement I will know nothing will ever change our current trajectory to total civilizational collapse.
Well, the title of that clip poses a rhetorical question. In the clip Bernie in short covers much of the “why”. In other clips from the same event Bernie goes further and wider.
In his email sent two days ago to his base he implies further yet. That has sent something of a shock through progressive small “d” democrat ranks. Is he calling for an outright break from the Democrats, from the clintonite cosplaying class-traitor suits? Certainly, from the clintonite DNC. Is he about to form a new progressive party? On the credible left there are quite a few vids from other than US mainstream news outfits circulating widely at the moment reporting and discussing that email. Wait and see… And why would the US working class throw rocks at their treacherous elites so far removed from them when they’re literally buried under a mountain of readily available guns? Bernie has a better maybe workable way.
Margaret Atwood speaking just this week said she expects that there will be an increasing amount of talk in the US about class as fascism rises.
Fascism is rising as is religious and ideological fundamentalism. Economic fundamentalism is already at its zenith having risen in the form of neoliberal market fundamentalism. I think the following factors provide fertile ground for the rise of fundamentalism in our modern or post-modern world:
Some symptoms and expressions include:
Forty years of “bad road” ahead. After that… worse than bad.
Ahem.
US presidents have been a mixed bag; both Lincoln and FDR could be easily classed as tyrants.
A US President has more powers than a monarch – that’s how they made it.
A functioning democracy is a difficult task to achieve, particularly when everybody has the need to express their opinion.
Ikonoclast: – “Forty years of “bad road” ahead. After that… worse than bad.“
Yep. Per NOAA, the global radiative forcing of the longer-term GHGs (i.e. CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, CFCs, HCFCs, and the HFCs), expressed as CO₂₋ₑ for year-2023 is 534 ppm, with an Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) of 1.515 (relative to AGGI = 1 in 1990).
Human-induced GHG emissions continue at high levels.
The Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) lasted from 17.5 to 14.5 million years ago, with a global mean surface temperature (GMST) of approximately 18.4 °C, about 3 °C warmer than today and 4 °C warmer than preindustrial. Boron-based records indicate 𝘱CO₂ varied between 300 and 500 ppm during the MMCO.
The Earth System GMST anomaly is around +1.3 °C (30-year mean) now (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline).
Breaching the +1.5 °C GMST anomaly (30-year mean) is inevitable, and likely around 2030.
And on humanity’s current GHG emissions trajectory, breaching the +2.0 °C GMST anomaly (30-year mean) is likely in the 2040s.
And if climate feedbacks kick-in, breaching the +4.0 °C GMST anomaly (30-year mean) is likely 30-50 years after that.
ICYMI/FYI:
But most people are oblivious to where we are heading…
Geoff,
Most people are indeed oblivious. In my terms, all I have to do is think that if my son and daughter (twins of 30 years today ) live to my current age of 70 years, they will see something like a +3.0 °C GMST world.
https://theconversation.com/cop26-what-would-the-world-be-like-at-3-c-of-warming-and-how-would-it-be-different-from-1-5-c-171030
This would be a very precarious world for everyone (still alive at that point) with few or no exceptions. Maybe the super-oligarchs (if they are still tolerated) would be doing alright. Nobody else though.
Ikonoclast: – “In my terms, all I have to do is think that if my son and daughter (twins of 30 years today ) live to my current age of 70 years, they will see something like a +3.0 °C GMST world.”
Chatham House published in Sep 2021 a research paper titled Climate change risk
assessment 2021: The risks are compounding, and without immediate action the impacts will be devastating. The Summary begins with:
On page 14, Figure 2 indicates the change in global surface temperature (ºC, relative to pre-industrial temperatures):
We’ll see…
We’ll see far worse far sooner. Industrial and environmental GHG production continues to increase exponentially. Not accounted for in projections are that: temperatures are rising exponentially not linearly with time; natural sinks are recently observed to be sinking, likely also to be at exponential rates of decline; and that some irreversible natural tipping points if not crossed already will be crossed rather soon to supercharge it all.
It seems to me that while we enjoy the experience of democracy it is finance that truly rules the world.
Trump might well blow hard on renewables but brownouts/blackouts could take his breath away – renewables are replacing retiring coal and there’s no going back.