Rebecca Weisser Quadrant Online January 2, 2025
Two-faced Janus, the ancient Roman god of January, looks both backwards to the year that has gone and forwards to the year to come. He presides over beginnings and endings, war and peace, he is the god of transitions, often portrayed above doorways. In short, Janus provides an excellent metaphor as the world stands on the threshold of the incoming Trump administration.
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The second coming of Donald Trump marks a historic moment with uncanny similarities to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Trump consciously echoed the promise of Reagan to “make America”, and one might add, the West, “great again’”. But the similarities don’t end there. Although Reagan is now recognised, even by the Left, as a great leader who, with Margaret Thatcher and John Paul II, brought about the fall of the Soviet Union, during his presidency he was mocked and derided as viciously as Trump. Both are political outsiders, even in their own party. Both have the common touch. Both have a commitment to free trade but are not afraid to use tariffs to push for fair terms for America. Both committed to tax cuts to drive economic prosperity. Both committed to effective deterrence and peace through strength. Both took on the dominant communist adversary.
Just as Reagan inherited the Iranian hostage crisis from the well-intentioned but weak Jimmy Carter, so Trump inherits the Iranian proxy hostage crisis from the weak if well-intentioned Biden. Iran handed over the hostages on the day of Reagan’s inauguration. Trump’s declaration that there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by the time of his inauguration sets the tone for his second term, which is basically “no more Mr Nice Guy”.
Unfortunately, unlike Reagan, Trump only has one term to restore America—and Western—leadership. He will have to work quickly given the lame-duck limitations that afflict every administration in its last two years. On the plus side, he comes with a strong team, each determined to disrupt—if they can—the toxic status quo and to hit the ground running. And not a moment too soon. The challenges Trump faces are daunting. The dearth of leadership in the West has facilitated the rise of the Axis of Autocrats (the “Crinks”: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) and the failure of deterrence with dire consequences for Ukraine and an uncertain future for allies like Taiwan.
These threats have had a long gestation. The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the zenith of America’s unipolar dominance. Since then, the West has followed a trajectory of dilettantism and decline that accelerated under Barack Obama, the enabling avatar of woke ideology. This Manichean doctrine elevates the veneration of victimhood to a cult that is mirrored by an equal and opposite loathing for “oppressors”—pale, stale, male and female conservatives, the “deplorable” masses, and anyone who dares to publicly oppose the woke agenda.
Like the Pied Piper, Obama led the Democrats away from their traditional social democratic base towards a metastasised Marxist utopia where traditional American values—individual rights, freedom of speech, self-reliance, equality of opportunity and before the law, competition, hard work, and the American Dream—were disparaged, distorted, or denied.
Trump triumphed because he won the votes of many who didn’t necessarily like him but were horrified by the direction in which America was heading. Research by Lord Ashcroft Polls found that 20 per cent of Americans who thought Trump’s views were extreme gave him their vote nonetheless.
With his election, America has past peak woke. The evidence is everywhere. Walmart, for example, announced that in future all appointments would be made exclusively on the basis of merit, regardless of race, sex, gender or creed. Who would have thought that such a statement would be newsworthy or controversial? Yet a damning report appeared in the New York Times with a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant contemptuously saying, “This is Walmart preparing for a Trump presidency and Justice Department.”
Where America leads, Australia follows, so there is much to look forward to with anticipation. After the early banning, and then hasty unbanning, of Australia Day celebrations in one of the biggest hotel groups, the demise of Woke Inc can’t come soon enough.
One of the most disturbing manifestations of the woke era has been the weaponisation of the law elevating “victims” and persecuting “oppressors”. Thus Black Lives Matter looters, rioters, arsonists, and assailants were bailed and often faced no charges, while January 6 protesters were sentenced to decades in prison.
In Australia, the deliberate humiliation of broadcaster Alan Jones—white, male, and conservative—is only the most recent example in Australia. Around thirty heavily armed police burst into his residence to arrest him in the bathroom while he was having a shower and senior police officers held a media conference later that day in which they usurped the role of the judiciary and prejudged the outcome of a trial, lauding the courage of the “victims” in coming forward.
The erosion of the principle of Blind Justice is everywhere apparent, not least in the pardoning of Hunter Biden, not just for crimes for which he was about to be sentenced but for any crimes he might have committed since 2014. Biden’s claim that Hunter was treated unfairly is an absurd inversion of the truth. Hunter was protected from prosecution for years and his incriminating laptop was falsely portrayed as a Russian fake concocted to harm Biden senior in the 2020 election.
An equally egregious example is the International Criminal Court charging the Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, with war crimes, when the court has no jurisdiction over a country that is not a member and that has a valid judicial system freely capable of investigating its political leaders. Even if the court did have jurisdiction, it is patently obvious that far from starving or deliberately killing civilians, Israel has done more to protect the civilians in the Gaza than any other military in history and that, as it fights a terrorist enemy that violates all the laws of war in a densely populated urban setting.
The ICC issuing a warrant at the same time for the arrest of the already deceased Hamas leader Mohammed Deif is a shameless act of moral equivalence and yet another inversion of reality. Unquestionably, Hamas leaders and militia committed horrific crimes on October 7, 2023, and every individual involved should be indicted. Instead, the court seeks only to punish one dead terrorist.
The Australian government has disgraced itself by playing along with this mockery of justice. If it respected international law, as it claims, it would condemn the ICC for breaching the conditions of its founding treaty. Instead, it appears to be more interested in shoring up Muslim votes. Blinded by naked political interest, it seems unable to see that it has embarked on a slippery slope. Israel may be the first Western democracy to be unfairly accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by this kangaroo court but it won’t be the last. Australia could in future find itself in the dock. It would be more principled to withdraw now than to empower this body by acquiescing to this travesty of justice.
With a federal election due in the first half of the year, Australians can look back to the wave of elections around the world in 2024 that—with the notable exception of the UK—were effectively votes of no confidence in woke elites. Voters were seeking relief from the consequences of open borders and the privations of Net Zero energy targets that are driving up the cost of living. They were exhausted by the woke project driving down the quality of life and driving businesses and jobs offshore, mostly to China.
At least Australians were spared the nightmare confronting the US, the UK and most of Europe of uncontrolled waves of unauthorised migrants walking across land borders or turning up in boats with all the attendant social instability—crime waves, housing shortages, stagnant wages, and the loss of recreational centres and accommodation to those claiming asylum status while the indigent native population sleeps in the streets.
Yet, they still have to cope with the pressures created by the Albanese government’s unhinged decision to admit around a million migrants over the course of two years. The strains are everywhere palpable, especially in Sydney and Melbourne, where most migrants settle. The ability to respond is everywhere constrained by the regulatory thickets choking the private sector.
Australia has also been cocooned from the worst effects of Net Zero by the sky-high prices paid for our exports of coal and gas, and the tax revenue that it generates, even as we shut down our own coal-fired generators and stymie the development of our vast gas reserves. Yet the consequences of the government’s delusional policies are inexorably making themselves felt. Already about 130,000 households, unable to pay their energy bills, have been put on hardship payment plans.
While all this is sapping support for Albanese, the polls say it is not enough to sweep Labor from office. Rather it would deliver a hung parliament with Labor clinging to power at the mercy of the Teals and the Greens.
If Mr Dutton is going to save Australia from that unpalatable prospect he needs to take a leaf out of Trump’s book. He must craft policies and a campaign to appeal to the 61 per cent of Australians who said no to the Voice and who are waiting for a leader who will make Australia great again.
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