40% of Australia has their head on.

You all need to remove your sense of morality from foreign policy calculations made by any government. It's about power, always about power. You may personally view one nation's values as better and therefore their ideas of power more moral, but still, it's about power.

For Australia specifically, they are reliant on the US Naval power projection for their conception of Australian national security, which is why even their new Labor government is still moving ahead with AUKUS. It why Australia has always sent their troops to fight in America's wars (post-WW2), rightly or wrongly.

Even after Vietnam was so bad for Australia that they revamped their entire military to become a "defensive" force and not an explicitly expeditionary one, they still fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Those were all chips put into the American security pot, that they're hoping to be able to call in when they need it.

Those reasons, and more, are why I'm confident that even with Trump, it would take something so drastic and catastrophic to change their calculations, that I don't want to even try and imagine what that would be. Even if I'm sure Trump could manage to cause whatever catalyst that would be necessary. Still, it wouldn't just be his reelection. It would be something so much worse.

This is probably as good a place and time as any to reflect on how everything went as terribly wrong as it had to get in order for clowns like Trump to not be laughed out of politics.

Politics had to fall very far, very hard, to get to the point where enough people felt like voting at all was a waste of time- and probably the biggest single factor I can point out is when the Neoliberals took over the Democrats, American Labor lost its only champion, Antitrust law lost its only advocate, and both major parties in the USA essentially became handmaidens to corporate power. While this was happening, the GOP, long since a dark-money puppet organization, abandoned any pretense of doing anything in the public interest and became a full-throated howl of corruption and voter suppression and gerrymandering.

When both major parties in a duopoly system take turns tag-teaming the working class for their donors' profit margins, you can expect that working class to radicalize, leftwards and rightwards, it's what happens every time when a working class realizes it's being objectively fucked. There was a reason Weimar Germany was so full of left-socialists and right-fascists, the middle had thoroughly failed and it turns out that when given the choice, status-quo-liberals will always choose fascism over socialism.

The USA get one "we did something unthinkably stupid" free pass.

No way would they ever reelect that literal fascist after he all but tried to dismantle their institutions and install himself as a democratic dictator.

They're not that stupid, and if they are? We should all cut ties, don't want to be dragged down with the ship. But it won't come to that.

Almost 40% think Australia should dump US alliance if Donald Trump returns as president, poll finds

And I wouldn't hold it against them if they did. If we're dumb enough to re-elect a fascist that already attempted one coup to remain in power then we should be dropped by all our allies. We would be a security risk at that point.

only 40% seems disturbingly low.

Almost 40% of most democratic country’s populations would probably agree with most dumb and provocative ideas presented in a poll… especially now days with how partisan everything has become.

That said the Australia/ USA alliance is more important than any particular administration or head of government either our Australian government or the US government.

It’s an alliance of enormous mutual benefit that frankly is not going anywhere.

Australia is an enormous unsinkable aircraft carrier rich in resources, far enough from potential adversaries in the region to provide extremely strong defence in depth in the region. We use common platforms and tactics in battle, and have extensive integrated combat experience.

Perhaps even more important than any of that, it would be politically unacceptable I believe to our populations to turn our back on each other at this point, so many of us have personal friends and family in each other’s country.

We might occasionally have disagreements like any family does, and we might not like everything about each other but that’s how it goes with family. Any other country trying some shit I feel will find out fast that our alliance is stronger than it has ever been.

The US, UK and Australia have a bond forged in the fire of conflict and quenched in blood, anyone who wants to try and fuck with one should probably be ready for a fight with all… not to be overly dramatic.

40% of Australia? I wasnt asked? (But I agree)