Dutton is already testing Trump’s campaign slogans. Will they work in Australia?

“Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” the narrator of Trump’s political advertisement says.

Among some Republican strategists, this single ad — played on high rotation during the US election campaign — is viewed as a masterstroke in solidifying Donald Trump’s winning election message. Its political strength is in combining concern around “woke” cultural change and a perceived neglect over people’s individual material economic interests.

The message may be jarring or even offensive to some but it is politically simple, and potent. It suggests Harris was more invested in minority groups while Trump is the friend to “you” — “you” representing the average working-class voter.

It sets up a troubling binary: suggesting that trans or gender-diverse people aren’t “you” when in reality this demographic can include the poorest people in the community.

But the ad is persuasive because it feeds into a perception that the Democrats were out of touch with battlers and that Trump’s rejection of “woke” pronouns is because he is fighting for you.

Its strength is how it combines the debate about pronouns with the fight that frames those who care about gender diversity as being disinterested in the lives and living conditions of those who are struggling financially.

Trumpisms are entering Australia’s political debate

Inside the corridors of power this week in Canberra there have been many discussions on what the parallels and differences are between our politics and what we’ve just seen unfold in the United States.

In his 2GB interview at the end of last week, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton mentioned gender pronouns for the first time since Trump was elected.

“I think when I see a government that is more interested in pronouns than they are people, it starts to become a real problem,” he said.

It was just a mention, but Dutton was dipping his toe into one of the big tensions bubbling away in our community: political branding and what the parties stand for.

Pronouns and gender are a proxy for so much more. This conversation is being weaponised to send messages about ordinary people versus “elites”, setting up tension between “us” and “them”.

Again yesterday Dutton was using key Trump language and messages including Trump’s most potent line of all, are you better off than you were four years ago? Or three years ago, in our context.

And while Dutton may have stepped back from abortion, he’s all in on this theme, and not only used pronouns again yesterday but added Aboriginal rights and the voice referendum in a list to frame the Albanese government as being out of touch with the mainstream.

“People will be asking themselves the question — and it’s a reasonable question to ask — are you better off today than you were at the time that Mr Albanese was elected? And how much worse will it get in 3 years’ time if he’s re-elected, particularly in a minority government?”

“Australians have a big choice to make at the next election. They can have a strong, stable, secure Coalition government that will get our country back on track, not going to be wound up in all of the Voice, and Makarrata Commission and pronouns and all of this business. I want to make sure families can afford to pay all of their bills.”

And the “risk” of a Greens deal and a minority government is at the centre of his attack.

“The prime minister can’t form a majority government after the next election, that much is clear. So, we’re talking about a Labor-Greens alliance government.”

Albanese is no woke warrior

The danger for Labor is that the party must find a way to straddle constituencies that care about these issues while also trying to connect with its traditional working-class base, which may not. It is theoretically possible to do both, yet in a fragmented media world where algorithms are in charge of what you see and they regurgitate repetitious messages and ideas, it is proving difficult for broad-based centre-left political parties to juggle.

One of the dumbest things you can do in politics is run the last election at the next election. Yet Australian political parties should closely consider whether a strategy that worked in another country — with a different culture and a different set of issues — can be plonked here and replicated.

Not to say that trends are not international — the inflation dragon is breathing its fire and fury and destroying incumbent governments around the world. But issues that may be dominant in other places won’t necessarily play out in an identical way here.

Same too with candidates. Say whatever you want about the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, but the depiction of him as a woke warrior is not really matched by reality.

In fact, Albanese has been so keen to avoid being depicted this way — knowing the Trump playbook was coming his way — he overreached only a few months ago when it came to the census and dumped a question on sexuality and gender, causing himself a world of greater hurt. The situation was so badly handled Albanese had to backflip not once, but twice, to fix it.

But what the situation did show is the trans culture war that is absolutely in play in the United States was also on Albanese’s radar and he doesn’t want to step on that booby trap again.

On Sky News last year, British broadcaster Piers Morgan asked the prime minister “What is a woman?” The question is commonly used by anti-transgender activists to stump progressive politicians and ridicule whatever answer they may deliver.

“An adult female,” was Albanese’s reply. Which happens to also be the answer the anti-trans movement accepts. Albanese’s answer angered the trans and gender-diverse community and led to accusations of “dog whistling” to anti-trans activists.

Whatever you think of the answer, it shows the PM has long been alert to the emergence of these issues and his radar has been to steer clear of being pigeonholed this way.

The emergence of the trans issue in the US as a culturally symbolic “us” and “them” campaigning strategy has alarmed people here who are worried that trans people may become political footballs again.

Eloise Brook CEO of AusPATH, the Australian Professional Association of Trans Health, told this column she feared this becoming an issue at the election.

“My fear is the Coalition will take the Republican win as a cultural rather than economic one. And in a similar play, try to make political capital on trans people’s access to health care in Australia,” she said.

“It would only exacerbate the existing problem: trans health care ending up in emergency departments and in the case of young people, child and adolescent mental health units as well. The cost of which is far, far higher than what is effectively preventable by properly funding specialised targeted care.”

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Will importing debates from the US work in Australia?

Inside the Liberal Party, there are moderates taking heart from Peter Dutton’s intervention on abortion this week where he told his joint party room to avoid pushing for a national debate on abortion.

Dutton also knows there are risks from importing debates from other countries that the Australian voting public has no appetite for. He knows the fight here is on the economy — the question is, will he be tempted to go beyond it?

Even on immigration, the notion that the issues are the same is a stretch. The US has a large land border and a genuine issue at that border that the public has made clear it wants addressed. Are Australians dealing with a daily arrival of boats? Is it really front and centre?

When analysing the US election, Dutton’s broader analysis may give us some clues into the campaign he will run.

“They just felt a real disconnect … To be honest, there’s an eerie parallel with what’s happening here in Australia.

“The migration issues there were very real in the election and I think they’re going to be real in the upcoming election here because this is just a disaster.”

Moderate Liberal Party frontbencher and home ownership spokesman Andrew Bragg told me he wants a campaign focused on the economy.

“Australians subscribe to a live and let live credo. This remains the fairest and the most electorally successful approach.

“Solving economic problems on housing, inflation and small business is the key to future success,” he warned.

“Offering more practical solutions as we have on super for housing is the way to go. Labor has been so bad on economic issues, the opportunity is in clear sight.”

Labor, of course, will fiercely contest the notion that it has been bad on economic issues and argue that inflation has halved under its watch. It will also hope that the broader unpopularity of Trump in Australia will play into their hands by May next year when our election is due and people are already sick of what may be a chaotic and noisy period.

For Peter Dutton, connecting with working-class voters will have to go beyond a potential war on wokeness and have a policy dimension. What are the policies that will economically advantage working Australians? In a country with compulsory voting and growing disinterest in the old political brands, the solutions to economic disengagement are likely to be what shift the dial for voters.

Patricia Karvelas is the presenter of RN Breakfast and co-host of the Party Room podcast. She also hosts Q+A on ABC TV Mondays at 9.35pm.