Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I don't think voters are rejecting Trumpism

After Albo’s massive win across the ditch on Saturday, I can see a lot of commentators are tempted to blame it on Trumpism - in the same way they blamed the Canadian election upset on Trumpism.

But I'm not convinced they’re right - at least not in the way they think they are. 
 
What these commentators are saying is that Trump has given Canadians and Australians the ick so badly that they voting against anything that looks like him: Dutton in Australia, Poilievre in Canada or just right-wing-ism in general.

I don't think that’s what happened here. Look at what’s happening in New Zealand at the moment  - the two parties in our parliamentary system that would probably share the greatest number of policy positions with Donald Trump are NZ First and ACT - and both are polling much higher than they historically have.

But also, those commentators seem to be conveniently forgetting what just happened in the UK on Friday night - which is that the Reform Party absolutely swept the local elections in a shock result.

Reform, led by Nigel Farage, is probably the closest thing to Trump in the English-speaking world.

So as much as the left would like to believe what happened in Australia and Canada is a Trump ick factor that they can pin on the rest of the right - I don’t think it is.

I think what’s happened is the same thing that happened with Covid: safe voting.

I think Trump and his tariff talk - and the possibility of a massive global slowdown - has freaked out voters in a similar way to how Covid freaked out people. And when people freak out, it favours the incumbent, because it’s better the devil you know to protect you.

That's why the Canadians returned their incumbent Government and that’s why the Australians returned their incumbent Government.

The same doesn't apply to the UK, because that was a local body election which is about rubbish and roads - not central Government which is about tariffs and healthcare. 

So I suspect we shouldn't over egg how much voters hate Trump as much as understand how much he might be frightening them.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Look after Albow's MASSI have went across the ditch on Saturday.
I can see a lot of commentators attempted to blame
this on trump Ism in the same way that they
blame the election, the Canadian election upset on trumpsm But
I'm not convinced that they're right, at least not in
the way that they think they are. So what these
commentators are saying is that Trump has given Canadian and
Australians the ick so badly that they are voting against

(00:21):
anything that looks like Donald Trump, whether it's Dutton in
Australia or Polliev in Canada, or just right wingism in general.
People hate Trump so much anything that even resembles him
gets the big No. Now, I don't think that is
what's happened. That's what's happened here, because have a look
at what's happening in New Zealand at the moment. The
two parties in our parliamentary system that would probably share

(00:42):
the greatest number of policy positions with Donald Trump and
New Zealand First and Act, and both of these parties
are polling much higher than they historically have, like considerably
higher than they historically have. Also, those commentators seem to
be conveniently forgetting what just happened in the UK on
Friday night, which is that the Reform part Party absolutely
swept the local elections in a shock result. Now Reformers

(01:04):
led by Nigel Faraj, and I think it's probably the
closest thing to Trump in the English speaking world. So
as much as the left would like to believe that
what happened in Australia and Canada is a Trump eck
factor that they can pin on the rest of the right,
I don't think it is. I think what's happened is
the same thing that happened during COVID, which is that
we've just seen some safe voting take place. I think

(01:24):
Trump and his tariff talk and the possibility of a
massive global slowdown has freaked out voters in a similar
way to how COVID freaked people out. And when people
freak out, it favors the incumbent because it's better the devil,
you know, right when it comes to protecting you. And
that's why the Canadians returned their incumbent government. It is
why the Australians returned their incumbent government. Now the same

(01:47):
doesn't apply to the UK, where reform did really well,
because that was a local body election system, which is
about rubbish and roads. It's not central government, which is
about tariff's and healthcare. So I suspect that we shouldn't
over egg how much voters hate Trump as much as
understand how much he might be frightening them. For more
from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks.

(02:08):
It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio