Domain is busy trying to argue Australians wouldn’t support Trump policies.
The only problem is that this ignores the four major Trump policies and themes that got him elected.
How are we to know if Australians support Trumpist policies if all we poll about is the culture war fluff so as not to upset Domain’s housing bubble?
Amusingly, this is exactly the kind of media propaganda that is likely to boost the appeal of Trump populists in the long term.
However, it is too slow-moving. The Australian disaster is coming faster than our subaltern psychology can adjust.
To wit, Beijing is having a good old laugh at the tough guy Downunder.
China has accused Australia of having “hyped up” its live-fire exercises in international waters between Australia and New Zealand, as Tony Abbott warns Beijing’s naval actions are a sign of things to come if we become an “economic colony” of the Asian superpower.
I don’t recall Tony Abbott slowing it down any with his mate “Sino” Andrew Robb signing us up to the FTA while Abbott was PM.
If Abbott had not done so ten years ago, we would not be here today. Peter Hartcher.
Australia is approaching the culminating point of its complacency. China’s navy is illustrating Australia’s vulnerability at the exact moment that the US is demonstrating American unreliability.
For a couple of decades, Australia has talked about “balancing” its biggest trading relationship against its main security relationship. Implication? That we can have both China and the US just as we want them. Today we can see that we can be confident of neither.
This is not “balance”. “Balancing” was a formula we used to reassure ourselves that it was OK to make two misjudgments at once.
Too right. To wit.
New Zealand Defence Minister Judith Collins revealed on Monday the ships were carrying weapons that were “extremely capable”, with one of the vessels having 112 vertical launch cells, carrying anti-ship missiles that had a range of 1000km.
…The incursion comes at a delicate time for the navy, however, which has never had fewer ships for monitoring the increasing Chinese expeditions.
…The net loss represents a reduction of almost a third of the navy’s commissioned surface ships, which now stands at 25.
Former rear admiral Rowan Moffitt said every new shipbuilding program for the past 25 years had started at least a decade later than it should have, meaning vessels were being retired without being replaced.
No, really? A New Zealand frigate is now shadowing the Chinese “flotilla” because we don’t have one available.
That is, three lousy PLAN ships have just exposed Australia as utterly defenceless.
We have no response or deterrent to offer. The PLAN cruiser can carry nuclear-capable HN missiles that could have already annihilated Australia’s three largest cities within an hour.
It’s a joke. Beijing now knows that any time it wants anything, it only has to sail three dinghies to Bateman’s Bay and ask politely of Albo’s cowards.
It is not the US that is the unreliable ally. It is Australia.
It’s time to face facts. Our capability is so weak, AUKUS so far away and so small, that the only option to secure Australian liberal democracy for another generation is to admit defeat and sell ourselves to America, or perhaps to Donald Trump himself.
The Louisana Concession of 1803 is the best precedent to set the price. The US purchased 800k square miles for $500 inflation-adjusted from a cash-strapped Napoleonic France.
Australia is $3.3m square miles, so we could argue that we are worth about $2bn today. In US dollars, that’s $1.27bn.
Sure, there’s more capital piled upon our land than there was in the Louisiana Purchase but most of ours is leveraged, and it’s much further to come for US armed forces than Louisiana.
But we’d better hurry, or we’ll soon be forced to discount ourselves versus Greenland.
