^{Contributed by Jim Hayes}

It would do Australia well to take notice of the political climate in the United States. After all, Australia is closely tied to it. The dysfunction there will ultimately transfer to here. In fact. We are already seeing some of it.

There is the elite of Wall Street billionaires, and those serving the political establishment institutions, and those decisive in media. Then there is the different political reality of most of the rest of the population. And the gap between these two realities is becoming wider every day.

The difference between the United States and Australia is that the gap is wider there. But who knows when Australia will catch up? If it does, we will experience our own form of what is going on there.

For the elite, what is important is the maintenance of wealth and privilege in an increasingly hostile environment. The bottom line is this. Modern day capitalism is not delivering to them as it once was in terms of the margin on investments. The average rate of profit has been slowly declining for the past 60 years. This picked up in the 1970’s. The 1070’s and the next decade saw the introduction and application of neoliberalism as the default government policy.

The essence of neoliberalism is the redistribution of national income upwards. The means for doing this is this. Tax breaks for the wealthy, keeping real wages down, raiding of the public sector, and increasing reliance of large private corporations on government handouts.

Other pay the price. The cost is the decline of public services, falling real wages, and inflated prices for homes and other necessities. Anyone questioning this just needs to consider the price explosion since the end of the 1970’s.

Another impact has been the debt burden. For the United States, this lies more heavily on public and corporate debt. In Australia, years of obsessions over ensuring government budget surpluses has transformed the bulk of debt into private household debt. We are borrowing to maintain our current standard of living.

As most of us find ourselves worse off, it breeds resentment. This feeds disenchantment with our political leaders and starts to eat away at confidence in the political system. Resentment easily turns to anger. People start demanding change. It doesn’t come, and they feel betrayed. They start to look elsewhere for [political leadership.

One part of this response in the United States has been the rise of the MAGA movement. It comes together with the leadership over it of Donald Trump. Its followers consider this as the agency for change. It may be a false hope. But the desire to break away from the political control of the elite is real.

The Democrats have responded by shifting to shift to becoming the main in your face defenders of the status quo. They are on the nose. The United Sates is seeing a political polarisation and the fall of the centre right and centre left. The main division now is not between notions of left and right. it is about whether the existing political system should or shouldn’t continue. Even if there is presently no agreement on what should replace it.

This is the context in which the presidential election will take place in about week. There is a more than even chance that Trump will be the victor. If Kamala Harris manages to get over the line in the popular vote, here is still the Electoral College. It gets the final say. And if this falls to the Harris side? millions of Trump supporters will believe the election has been stolen, and the political crisis will deepen.

Back in Australia, we have had a mall element of MAGA via Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. The great divide between the elite and the bulk of the population takes a different form. This is a turning away from the major parties, helped along by compulsory registration and a trip to the polls. There has been a significant rise in support for the greens, smaller political groups, and stand-alone independent.

^{Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is kind of Australia’s mini version of the MAGA in the United States}

There is a noticeable political polarisation, where the centre right and centre left are diminishing., even if the level of anger has not risen to the degree it has in the United States. How long this will last is anyone’s guess. We have a Coalition opposition that every day looking a little more like the Trump controlled Republicans. Labor increasingly looks more like the Democrats. Like them it has become the foremost champion of sticking to the status quo and doing the least possible.

Next year, and perhaps as early as February, Australia faces a federal election. It won’t change any part of what has just been outlined. The divide between the elite and everyone else will continue to grow. The odds are that a minority government is most likely. One of the main contenders will have to seek an alliance to form government.

If Labor can manage this with the Greens and Independents, it may be pushed into doing more. If alternately, the Coalition can pull the numbers together, it will become more like the Trump republicans.

The election will not itself bring about the change that much of Australia wants. The divide will continue to grow. But the election result will colour how this will develop from then on.