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

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.

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.

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.

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)

I mean, understandable but still a terrible idea. More than ever Australia, Europe, the US need each other.

why? hasnt it been proven that the Aus govt doesnt care about what the population wants? besides 40% being 11% short of a majority?

Surprised it's not 60% honestly.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A significant minority of Australians think the country should withdraw from the overall Anzus security alliance with the US if Donald Trump returns to the White House, while just under half of the respondents in a new poll believe the Aukus pact locks Australia in to supporting the US in any armed conflict.

But after the steady thaw in diplomatic relations between Canberra and Beijing over the past 12 months, and the release of Australia’s defence strategic review in April, 49% say that now.

A majority of Australian respondents (63%) believe China will become the most economically and militarily influential country in Asia over the coming couple of decades (32% say the US will be the pre-eminent power).

The new poll findings follow Anthony Albanese’s return from an official visit to Washington and ahead of the prime minister’s trip to Shanghai and Beijing at the end of this week.

Seven months after Albanese joined Biden and the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, in San Diego to announce the Aukus plans, there remains uncertainty over congressional approvals needed for them to succeed.

Asked on Tuesday whether or not he was walking a diplomatic tightrope between the strategic competitors – Washington and Beijing – the prime minister said Australians wanted him “to be direct about our interests”.

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