I have witnessed what motivated vast numbers of working-class Americans to vote for Trump. I agree with the view that it wasn't so much hatred of minority groups — although that is how it's been manifesting — as anger at their own deteriorating living standards and hope that an 'outsider' can fix the situation.
My husband and I took a six-week road trip around western USA the year after the start of the Global Financial Crisis. I set 'shortest route' on the GPS to intentionally avoid the faster freeways and travel off the tourist track.
What we saw in small-town and middle America horrified us. Not just the odd person sleeping in their 25-year-old cars but whole families camped along the smaller roads.
Vast trailer parks, not at all like Australia's lovely caravan parks, squat on the outskirts of any sizeable town. Row upon row of shabby demountables are set on weedy gravel only a metre or two apart. No gardens, no playgrounds, no privacy; just a pall of palpable hopelessness hanging in the dusty air.
Crumbling roads and houses also demonstrated that widespread poverty was not a recent phenomenon. The GFC had simply accelerated the process.
In lower-middle class areas, whole streets of deserted and already dilapidated new homes bore silent witness to dodgy developers and repossession by the very banks that had caused the crash. It was heartbreaking to see starving, abandoned pets roaming their old neighbourhoods, furry avatars for their desperate and departed owners.
I spoke to service workers on 12-hour shifts after observing one waiter eat several bowls of the free popcorn in the bar after his shift ended at midnight, because meals were not included. He couldn't afford to buy dinner on the then minimum wage for tipped workers of $2 an hour. The new federal award is still only $7.25, after taking tips into account.
Workers have no chance of ever buying a home, educating themselves, or even eating well. There is no way up for working-class Americans, and the middle class is sliding down to meet them. The claim in the Declaration of Independence that 'all men are created equal' is a farce for most Americans. It's easy to see how anyone seen as non-establishment, however erroneously, can feed their anger.
"I fear for my own future as a new senior. After working full-time for 40 years and with my husband recently retired after 50, the future looks bleak for us, despite a lifetime of paying taxes and modest living."
Something similar is happening in Australia. Our own workers and large sections of the middle class are now struggling and falling ever further behind, as the gap between the well-off and the other 80 per cent continually widens. I can foresee a time when an Australian Prime Minister will make Donald Trump look like a 'sensitive new age guy'.
My husband and I are baby boomers, so we own our own home and I benefited from a decent education. This is fast becoming a dream for the generations after us; a fantasy for the millennials who face a casualised work future and high-priced vocational or tertiary education. There will soon be no way up for working-class Australians either.
I fear for my own future as a new senior. After working full-time for 40 years and with my husband recently retired after 50, the future looks bleak for us within a very short period, despite a lifetime of paying taxes and modest living.
Neither of us drinks, smokes or gambles, but we've been forced to supplement my labourer husband's income from our now vanished savings since I retired early for health reasons seven years ago. New Disability Pension rules ensured only 15 per cent of applications succeeded in 2015-16 and I'm not eligible. I also cannot get an age pension for another seven years, at 67.
My husband's half-couple pension covers only our non-discretionary expenses of rates, insurances and car registration. Food, clothing, fuel, medical expenses, utilities, car and house maintenance all come from our small superannuation nest eggs. These will obviously not last long, even after giving up our health insurance just when we're beginning to need it.
And we're the lucky Boomers. How will future generations fare in their old age without the good start we had in life? They must be much more afraid than I am.
So I can understand the Trump phenomenon. Hard-working Americans and many Australians are blaming various minorities as responsible for their decline over the last two decades. They are deliberately being blinded to the real culprits: our own governments and their wealthy business backers. Juvenal's 'bread and circuses', designed to keep the people docile and distracted in Ancient Rome, have simply been updated to Maccas and manufactured news. And hatred.
Are we really so easily manipulated? Is the American model the future Australia wants for itself?
Julie Davies is a rural Central Queensland writer, originally from New Zealand. She became an accidental migrant after falling in love with Australia while on holiday in 1978. Julie has had a chequered career, ranging from farm labourer to environmental scientist and political minder to human rights advocate.