Donald Trump: The Left’s Best Friend

In my last post I made the point that Donald Trump’s rhetoric is having consequences in other countries.

Following on from the Canadian election in which the Conservative Party was defeated and the leader even lost his seat, now we have the Australian election results. It was a shellacking by the left-wing Australian Labor Party.

This was a such a huge win for the Labor Party over the ‘conservative’ Liberal Party that even Dutton, the leader lost his seat. If you’re not familiar with Australian politics, conservatives being called Liberal is an oxymoron.

There were other forces at play in Australia, notably that Dutton was a boring, unimpressive leader. However, Dutton’s party was in the lead until Trump announced his tariffs on everyone including Australia even though we have a trade deficit with America. If you want to raise nationalism in any country, just act against that country’s national interest. I spoke with a number of Australians after Trump announced his tariffs and they didn’t have kind words for Trump.

Almost immediately following Trump’s actions the polls turned and Labor jumped into a lead. Dutton was tainted as aligned with Trump and no amount of rebuttal by Dutton would have any effect, especially with the left-wing bias of the press.

So Trump trying to get other countries to bend the knee to America with insults or ill-thought policies has had the opposite effect. The more you push the more you get push-back. The Danes are also overwhelmingly against giving up Greenland to America. Insulting the Danes is not the way to curry favour.

Interestingly, Trump seems little disposed to insulting Putin or Iran. I wonder why? I see China as the big winner in all this. If America turns on it’s friends and they move to the left, they will be more inclined to make deals with China. Is this Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’?