American Fascisti: When will we recognise the end of empire?

Australia needs to ask itself whether it is protecting a friendship or enabling a descent into fascist militarism.

Graffiti artwork: Van Thanh Rudd.

The political and social situation developing in the United States is increasingly chaotic and authoritarian, marked most recently by the ongoing unrest in Los Angeles. These protests – triggered by the sweeping and draconian immigration ICE raids ordered by US President Donald Trump – have reached a level of dystopian aggression not seen in America for decades. Nearly 5,000 National Guard troops and marines have been deployed across the city, and the result has been widespread civil rights violations: tourists incorrectly detained and deported, legal residents unlawfully removed, and individuals targeted just for their viewpoints offered online. Social media is now under widespread scrutiny, and the expression of views such as “Free Palestine” or even mild criticism of the Israeli state has become a deportable offence. The scale and brutality of the crackdown in Los Angeles – rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, and stun weapons deployed indiscriminately – have shocked many observers.

This is not the behaviour of a confident or stable democracy – it’s the erratic violence of a crumbling regime and resembles the actions of an autocratic tin-pot dictatorship, further magnified by the first military parade since 1991, which coincided with Trump’s birthday on June 14. Of course, American history is riddled with moments of state violence, from the 1992 L.A. riots to the shootings at Kent State University and other campuses, and systemic and historical violence perpetrated against people of colour. These events have never been isolated – they have risen from a deeper structural brutality, one that’s often racially charged, and from a leadership class that is increasingly obsessed with control as their grip on reality weakens. Trump’s impulsive declarations, such as calling for the arrest of California Governor Gavin Newsom, only highlights this insecurity, and there’s no real logic behind this administration’s actions – just a high level of paranoia, volatility, and a creeping embrace of American fascism.

While it might be so evident right now, Trump is not the disease, but a symptom of the ills of the United States. The deeper sickness is the slow but unmistakable decay of the American system itself. Trade policy under Trump lurches erratically from one direction to another, gaining applause and cheers from an equally maniacal Republican Party. Allies are cast aside on a whim, including Australia. Iran is attacked through America’s vassal state, Israel. The United States no longer functions with strategic clarity – only tactical knee-jerk reactions that end up hitting everyone in the face. It’s not a sustainable situation, and the world, especially countries such as Australia, need to wake up to what is happening. The alliance once based on shared values and global stability is now increasingly becoming compromised by America’s Trumpist dysfunction and Australia needs to start charting an independent path and diluting its alliances, not out of hostility, but for the sake of due diligence and self-preservation.

Since the late-1800s, the United States has brought immense harm to the world through belligerence, self-interest and an unchallenged belief in its own exceptionalism. For sure, the US has also provided the world with profound beauty – jazz, blues, cinema, television, and literature that shaped a century – but these cultural gifts mask the disastrous face of an interventionist US military, which has had a role in almost every conflict around the world since 1945, either through direct military involvement, clandestine CIA-backed operations, indirect proxy involvement and arms trades. The US has been the out-of-control behemoth for many years, but it’s going through a natural and slow decline which has been building up for some time.

Empires don’t last forever; history has shown that. We watched the Soviet Union collapse in the late 1980s; now we are watching the United States decline in full view. Of course, it won’t vanish overnight, but the trajectory has been set: we’ve seen this happen in history before and it’s happening again, and the sadness of watching something so influential falter is tempered only by the inevitability of it. Power fades; it always does, once its replaced with complacency. And for now, the wisest course for countries such as Australia is to stay alert, stay detached, and strategically prepare for what comes next.

Australia’s subservience failure to speak truth to power

What’s just as disturbing as the events in the United States is Australia’s muted, almost embarrassed response to it. The spectacle of our national government and media tiptoeing around American brutality – this time, a U.S. National Guardsman shooting rubber bullets that hit Australian journalist Lauren Tomasi in Los Angeles – has been disheartening but predictable. There isn’t a dispute about the facts: she was clearly identified as media, obviously doing her job, standing at a reasonable distance from any confrontation, yet was deliberately targeted. The footage that went viral all around the world is very clear. And yet, the initial reporting by Australian outlets was almost apologetic and submissive – portraying Tomasi as “caught in the crossfire”, as if her injury were some unfortunate but understandable accident, rather than an act of calculated intimidation.

Australian journalist Lauren Tomasi shot by a National Guardsman in Los Angeles.

The response reflects a broader trend of Australian deference to the United States, particularly under the Albanese government. Last week it was Defence Minister Richard Marles fawning over U.S. military might, practically grovelling in public. This week, it’s the media unwilling to defend one of their own, for fear of offending a dangerous ally. At first, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seemed to follow suit, issuing a vague and mealy-mouthed statement about “democratic institutions” and “global uncertainty”. What does that even mean in the face of a soldier turning a weapon on a clearly marked journalist?

Perhaps realising the errors of his ways, Albanese later clarified his position with stronger language, calling the incident “horrific” and noting that the footage made it clear she was just doing her job as a journalist, also stating that the government had raised the issue with the U.S. administration and considered the action unacceptable. But even this firmer stance still had the air of damage control, rather than a bold defence of press freedom and police brutality meted out to an Australian citizen.

The idea that this was an accident – or just “rubber bullets” – is itself part of the problem. Rubber bullets can do some serious damage to people. They can kill. They’re designed not for gentle deterrence, but for violent crowd suppression. This was a direct shot to the leg, fired with intent, by someone who likely resented her presence as a journalist bearing witness to what was happening on the ground. If the price of maintaining the American relationship is silence in the face of violence, or when media freedom is under attack, then Australia needs to ask itself whether it is protecting a friendship or enabling a descent into fascist tyranny.

A mad king and the alliance of illusion

There’s no longer any serious argument that what’s unfolding in the United States is normal politics. It has become a theatre of the absurd in power and dysfunction, but its consequences are real and global. The latest drama in the fallout between Donald Trump and Elon Musk – which appears to be more of a battle of two ego-driven Alpha males in an episode of the TV soapie Bold and Beautiful, than an ideological contest to arrive at the best outcomes for the United States. But it’s also important to remember that this ain’t no soap opera: one of them is the elected leader of the most powerful country in the world – at this time in history but, perhaps not for too much longer – the other is the wealthiest man on the planet, who holds incredible influence in technology, communications and space infrastructure. Neither of them are grounded within the tradition of democratic accountability, neither behave in ways that inspire global confidence, and come directly from the world of crony capitalism.

Imagine the outcry and ridicule if China’s President Xi Jinping had a very public feud with Jack Ma or spent his time posturing on social media, quoting obscure song lyrics, dancing to a Chinese version of the Village People or waging personal vendettas. We’d rightly call it erratic and dangerous, and China would lose all credibility on the world stage. But when Trump does it, the Australian media too often shrugs and dismisses it as Donald being Donald. He now carries the nickname “TACO” – Trump Always Chickens Out – after requesting a call with Xi Jinping, only to refuse it once it was granted. This is not strategy. It’s not diplomacy. This is chaos dressed in a presidential suit.

And yet, here we are – watching the United States spiral out of control, while Australia waits awkwardly in the wings, unsure how to act. It’s been nearly a decade of degraded leadership in Washington: from the first Trump term’s scorched-earth populism, to Joe Biden’s stumbling centrism, and now Trump 2.0 – a return to volatility without even the pretence of governance. Australia is caught somewhere in the middle, clinging to old certainties in a world that no longer resembles the post-war order we built ourselves around. We’re no longer a part of the British Empire that Menzies always wanted to reach out to; we’re no longer a part of the US exceptionalism that John Curtin felt Australia could use to its strategic benefit. It’s clear that stronger relationships with China would be of greater benefit to Australia, but the Anglo–US connection keeps denying us the clear direction that we need to travel towards.

The sensible course would be to begin the slow, strategic decoupling from American military dependency. Instead, we remain wedded to a fantasy of permanence – none more evident than our silence over the AUKUS agreement. While the United States has launched an internal review of AUKUS, and the United Kingdom is reassessing its commitment, Australia refuses even to discuss the possibility. It’s total madness. If two out of the three members of a tripartite alliance are having doubts, it defies logic not to review the deal. You cannot cling to the “A” in AUKUS if the “UK” and “US” walk away, or continue to believe the deal is a reliable one if the other two parties are critically assessing the merits of it.

There is growing political pressure to reassess or cancel the AUKUS deal. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, while he’s been a long-term critic of the AUKUS deal, is now calling for a review, along with the Australian Greens who are also demanding transparency and parliamentary approval for these kinds of military and security deals. But what do we get from the Australian government? Silence and a government still caught in the inertia of old alliances and Cold War ghosts.

The Prime Minister has recently talked about “Australia making its own decisions”. If that’s the case, now is the time to prove it. It is not radical to say that Australia’s defence and foreign policy should be developed and created in Canberra, not in Washington or London. We no longer owe anything to the Anglosphere’s geopolitical fantasy. The Pacific is our neighbourhood, and the Indian Ocean is our future. Our attention must turn to the region we live in, not to the dying empire across the Atlantic or, as former Prime Minister Paul Keating said, Australia needs to “seek its security in Asia rather than from Asia”.

For decades, Australia’s relationship with the United States has operated on loyalty rather than strategy. John Curtin turned to America in 1941 because Britain had failed us. Harold Holt declared we were “all the way with LBJ” in 1966. But the time for declarations is long over. Today’s alliance is unbalanced. Australia is treated as a client state – militarily compliant, economically pliant, and politically submissive. We house US bases. We commit to their wars. We accommodate their spies. And when a journalist is shot by an American soldier on US soil, our first instinct is not to protest – but to defer and explain it all away, as if nothing really happened.

It’s no longer enough just to be the so-called good friend or rely on this jingoistic notion that we are “all mates”. Australia must now be a sovereign friend. That means asking hard questions, reviewing dangerous deals, and breaking the habit of obedience and subservience. The mad king is back on the throne in the US. It’s just that we can’t afford to be his loyal jester for too much longer.