Toxic

FIRST PERSON

- ALEX MAGNO

American voters may not know what to do with the president they returned for a second term. But elsewhere, voters in large numbers reject candidates who even remotely sound like Donald Trump.

Australian voters are not in the habit of reelecting parties in power. Last week, however, the left-center Labor Party scored a stunning victory against the center-right Liberal-National coalition. The vote keeps Labor leader Anthony Albanese for a second term.

So decisive was the vote Down Under that Liberal leader Peter Dutton lost his own seat he held for 24 years. Many of the themes and talk points of the Liberal-National coalition struck voters as echoing positions taken by the Republican Party under Trump.

Assessing the vote, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull thinks Dutton ran "a very Trumpian campaign." That stoked voter fears that the center-right opposition could bring to Australia the same sort of chaos characterizing Trump's presidency so far.

The results of the vote in Australia echoes the results of the voting in Canada a few days before.

Just months ago, Canadian Liberals were extremely unpopular. Because of his party's unpopularity, Justin Trudeau found it necessary to resign as party leader. All the polling taken ahead of the campaign gave the opposition Conservative Party a substantial lead.

Mark Carney, participating in his first elections, was chosen to lead the Liberal Party. He faced veteran politician Pierre Polievre, leader of the Conservatives. It did seem that the Liberals were in for a trouncing until Donald Trump came along.