If there are any insights worth taking away from Donald Trump’s victory last week, it’s that anything is possible, politicians should focus on the issues, and dance more on stage… Not content with breaking the GOP’s political consensus in 2016, Trump came back swinging (though it was more of a fist pump), to steal the coalition of migrants, minorities, and the young that the Democrats previously relied on. That is now two epoch-altering vibe shifts in as many decades – so who said history was over?
But it wasn’t his energy or YMCA soundtrack that brought Trump back in 2024. It wasn’t Russian hackers, Project 2025, or even Elon Musk that got him over the line. And it’s cheap to say that Trump won because voters were unthinkingly ‘reacting’ against an ‘elite establishment’, which is an almost offensive way to say that Trump voters are irrational actors, rather than normal people logically voting with their best interests in mind.
It was more likely this: Trump, at his core, is an issues guy. His unwavering focus on the things that mattered is why, in turn, people loved him. And it’s why they will stick with him no matter what he says, no matter his gaffes, or his weaving stories. Trump’s commitment to the issues signalled a genuine belief in the problems facing Americans. And while some may accuse him of being erratic or light on detail, it is on the issues that he is at his consistent best. Put another way: it’s the issues, stupid.
Immigration, trade, the economy, and foreign wars. These were the core ingredients, not of Trumpism, but of America’s anxiety. It is within this context that Trump captured and signalled a general message that America was in decline. Not because its people failed, but because the leadership class had fallen short. If 2016 Trump was about American decline, 2024 was about American renewal. Yes, the country was struggling with inflation, political division, and a border crisis. But it was the American people, Trump argued, that could put America back on the path to winning again. With just the right government, policy agenda, a loyal administration, and with some help from people like Elon Musk, America could carve its path back towards the stars.
That is why, hanging over the hall in his 2 am victory speech, flanked by titans of the business, media, tech worlds, his family, along with thousands of his supporters – was a flag with the words, ‘DREAM BIG AGAIN’. Trump’s America isn’t just about going backwards to better times. It isn’t, as the famous saying goes, ‘about the worship of ashes’. But instead, it is a conservatism based on ‘the preservation of fire’. It is, in Trump’s words, about moving forward, ‘bigger, and better, and stronger than ever before’.
While America looks to reclaim the new frontier, across the Pacific, Australia seems stuck in the mud. The major parties, by comparison, offer vision but that of managed decline. Our economy is tired and hardly growing, despite huge population growth driven by record-breaking immigration. A tragicomic reality was reflected in the latest employment data, which showed that most new jobs added were in the NDIS or public service. Our GDP is stagnant, our real wages are going backwards, and per capita, our net wealth is going backwards. This is despite having extraordinary reserves of minerals, vast open land, highly capable human capital, and enviable institutions. As our own renegade tech guy said in a podcast, ‘We should be the richest country in the world. We have everything. Instead, we have the greatest erosion of wealth in the developed world.’ We could be a superpower.
Trump’s America is a wake-up call that Australia needs a new vision. Not a wasteful soul-searching perspective of ‘finding our position in a globalised world’, not a philosophical debate about ‘who we are’, nor a defunct and unproductive vision of ‘progress’. Instead, it is time again for Australia to set its sights forward, to expand its capabilities in technologies, domestic manufacturing, energy, agriculture and more. To untether our unhealthy reliance on cheap trade, recalibrate our economy away from immigration-dependent growth, and to return our focus towards improving the lives and living standards, the dreams and aspirations of all Australians. The objective of putting Australia first isn’t to copy Trump’s America. It is to compete with Trump’s America.
After all, we are Australians. And we can’t let Americans have all the fun, can we?
Jordan Knight is Director of National Conservative Institute of Australia and Migration Watch Australia
