The descent into Trumpism and the failure of the left to fight back

If centre-left politics continues to play it safe and avoid confronting the fundamental flaws of the neoliberalist economic system, then their time in power will be brief.

The Liberal Party in Australia has never been a stranger to opportunism but under Peter Dutton, it has fully embraced the Trumpist model of lies, division, and performative outrage. Despite media attempts to frame Dutton as “different” to Donald Trump’s brand of chaotic politics – the ABC recently editorialised that Dutton was “unlikely to read from Trump’s playbook as the election nears” – the evidence speaks for itself.

The culture wars, the shameless populism, the deliberate misinformation and disinformation – all of this follows the same blueprint that has worked so effectively for right-wing populists across the world, including Trump. The appointment of Jacinta Price as the spokesperson for government efficiency is a perfect example, mirroring Trump’s own hollow attempt at “government efficiency”, a meaningless title that masks the real intent: dismantling public institutions while enriching corporate interests under the guise of cutting bureaucratic “waste”, as early indications from Elon Musk’s actions in the U.S. suggest. The hypocrisy is pretty obvious – Dutton and Price, along with other Liberal Party figures, have been among the most egregious abusers of taxpayer-funded luxuries.

Price spent $76,000 on business class flights during the Voice to Parliament referendum, $21,000 on a flight to attend a cost-of-living committee meeting. Dutton also spent $23,000 for flights to a Gina Reinhart-sponsored Bush Summit, $63,000 for himself and his staff members to fly to another cost-of-living meeting, and $6,000 to attend Reinhart’s social gathering in Western Australia. Excellent examples of wasteful largesse.

And on top of this, there’s the wastefulness and corruption from during the Coalition’s time in office between 2013 to 2022. But hypocrisy doesn’t seem to matter in this era of conservative politics: the only thing that matters is controlling the narrative, and the right has mastered this art.

Despite the clear and evident failures of Trump between 2017–21, Boris Johnson in the UK, and Scott Morrison in Australia, right-wing populism is still thriving, as if the electorate forms a collective amnesia about these experiences, and the expectation that this incompetence would lead to a broad rejection of their politics has proven to be false. Instead, they have been replaced by a new generation of populist leaders who have learned from their mistakes – Dutton has refined the formula: avoid Trump’s excesses but maintain his tactics, weaponise cultural division, and manufacture outrage while simultaneously promising to gut public services.

This persistence of right-wing populism is not just a reflection of the weakness of its opponents – it is a sign of a deeper ideological failure on the part of centrist and centre-left politics. Leaders such as Joe Biden, Keir Starmer and Anthony Albanese have not failed in governance on the face of it; they have, for the most part, restored basic competence and stability after the chaos of their predecessors. But within their political strategies and in the “game” of politics, they have been hopelessly inadequate.

The response to right-wing populism has been weak, defensive, and uninspiring, especially in the case of Albanese, who did promise a “careful and cautious government”, and has delivered that in spades, just at a time where a bolder direction was needed and demanded from the electorate. But in trying to be sensible and moderate, they have ceded the political battlefield to the extremists. Biden in U.S. resembled a cadaver-like figure, easily opened to ridicule. Starmer in the UK has a different set of problems, but is suffering drastically by being a massive do-nothing disappointment, despite the massive victory the electoral gave him at the 2024 general election.

Albanese has ceded so much ground to his opponent – and some of this can be sheeting home to the mainstream media and its relentless promotion of Dutton – some, but not all. If Albanese had a more compelling narrative to provide to the media and the electorate, and just be little bit more interesting, and true to himself, he wouldn’t have the Labor government in a position where, based on current opinion polling, their best outcome at the next federal election will be a barely manageable minority government.

The failure of the left to counteract right-wing populism stems from an unwillingness to confront the big ideological con at the heart of modern politics: neoliberalism. The economic order that has dominated the West since the 1980s – built on privatisation, deregulation, and the gutting of the welfare state – has created the perfect conditions for right-wing populism to thrive. Yet the supposed opponents of this order, the centre-left parties, have not only failed to dismantle it, but in many cases, have actively participated in its expansion. Tony Blair in the UK; Bill Clinton in the U.S.; Bob Hawke and Paul Keating locally; they may have implemented some progressive social policies, but they also embraced the neoliberal economic model, locking in a system that prioritises corporate interests over public welfare.

This is the real reason why centre-left parties struggle to counteract figures like Dutton and Trump – they have refused to challenge the economic structures that created the conditions for right-wing populism in the first place. Centrist and centre-left politics talks about fighting inequality – such as Albanese’s “no one left behind”—but refuses to abandon the policies that sustain it.

Instead of presenting a clear alternative, they offer minor adjustments to an economic system that has already failed millions. Meanwhile, the right exploits the discontent this system generates – even though they were the ones who created and promoted this system in the early 1980s – redirecting public anger away from the real sources of their hardship and towards convenient scapegoats: immigrants, minorities, the “woke elite”. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan would be proud of their handiwork.

The neoliberal con is everywhere in Australia. Private health insurance is a racket that does little more than shift public money into corporate hands. Private education is a status symbol that offers no real academic advantage over the public system, yet receives disproportionate government funding. Private infrastructure contracts routinely cost more than public projects, yet the government continues to outsource essential services to private firms which prioritise profits over efficiency. Even the media landscape is distorted by neoliberal logic, with public broadcasters such as the ABC increasingly compromised by the influence of corporate interests and the fear of offending anyone.

The only way to break this cycle is for centre-left politics to abandon its timidity and reassert a bold vision for government, starting with high-level economic reform. The great reformers of history – whether from the left or the right – didn’t succeed by cautiously hedging their bets: they succeeded by taking clear, decisive stands. Thatcher in the UK; John Howard in Australia: for all their faults, they never wavered in their ideological convictions. Their policies were disastrous for working people, but they pursued their ideological intentions, despite how despicable they were.

In contrast, too many modern centre-left leaders are afraid to challenge the status quo in any meaningful way, even though implementing a true centre-left political and economic agenda would appease the people who are now intending to vote against them. If only they had the courage and foresight to understand what the correlation is here…

There needs to be a starting point to weaken the influence of corporate and vested interests and restoring government control over essential services – healthcare, education, infrastructure – would remove some of the worst distortions created by privatisation. A more progressive taxation system, with aggressive measures to crack down on corporate tax avoidance, would help fund these initiatives without relying on endless budget cuts.

Of course, any government – which would typically be a centre-left government – that pursued such reforms would face a brutal backlash. The media, heavily aligned with corporate interests, would paint them as radical extremists, and the business elite would do everything in their power to discredit them. And yet, this is exactly what is required.

The reason right-wing populists have been so successful is that they are willing to play dirty politics, take the risks, to reshape political discourse in their favour. The centre-left must be willing to do the same – not by embracing dishonesty and division, but by refusing to play by the rigged rules of neoliberalism and change the system in their favour. This is what conservatives do whenever they are in office, so why can’t progressive parties do the same?

Australia has one of the best electoral systems in the world, and compulsory voting prevents the voter suppression that has become rampant in many parts of the United States. But the voter apathy remains, with that prevailing sentiment that “both sides are the same”, because, in too many ways, it is true.

If centre-left parties – or those masquerading as centre-left – continue to just manage neoliberalism rather than dismantle it, then they will continue to lose the political war. The populists such as Dutton will keep winning, not because they have better policies, but because they offer something clear, something emotionally compelling, something that speaks to the frustrations of people who feel abandoned by the political system, even though these populists offer no solutions and are actually promising to offer more punishment to the people affected by their policies.

The question isn’t whether left (or left-ish) parties can win elections – Albanese, Biden, and Starmer have already proven that they can. The question is whether they can do anything meaningful with their victories and, so far, they haven’t. If they continue to play it safe, if they continue to avoid confronting the fundamental flaws of the economic system, then their time in power will be brief.

The next wave of right-wing populists will be waiting, ready to exploit every failure, every disappointment, every instance of inaction, and then offer more of the same. And if that happens, the next Trump or Dutton won’t just be an opportunistic populist – they will be something far worse, as we have already started to see in the United States.