Anthony Albanese’s social media post congratulating Donald Trump for winning the US presidential election has been inundated with comments that he is the next left-wing leader to face electoral extinction.
“You too will get out of here in the next election,” one person responded.
“The world is against you, weak lefties.”
“Start packing your bags buddy, you’re out of the hostel,” said another.
In his social media message, Albanese said: “Australians and Americans are great friends and true allies.”
“By working together, we can ensure that the partnership between our nations and peoples remains strong into the future,” he said.
However, some Australians were not convinced of the Prime Minister’s sincerity.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s congratulatory tweet to Donald Trump for winning the US presidential election has sparked a series of warnings that he is “next”.
“What a fake message,” one person wrote.
‘You’ve done nothing but talk smugly about him for the last 10 years. We can only hope that in Australia they expel you in the next elections.
On Thursday, Albanese revealed that he had called Trump “to personally congratulate him on his election victory.”
“We discussed the importance of the Alliance and the strength of the relationship between Australia and the United States on security, AUKUS, trade and investment,” Mr Albanese said.
“I look forward to working together in the interests of our two countries.”
Mr Albanese expressed a very different attitude towards Trump, then six months into his first term as president, at a 2017 question-and-answer session for the Splendor in the Grass music festival, which many have flagged after it recently resurfaced online.
Albanese, who was in the opposition at the time, when asked how he would deal with Trump if elected, responded “with fear” and went on to say that the brash real estate mogul-turned-politician “scared the hell out of him.” me’.
Sunrise host Nat Barr suggested Albanese may need to apologize after Trump was elected US president on Wednesday night and reporters dug deeper into the matter on Thursday morning.
“No, I hope to work with President Trump,” he insisted.
‘I think I have demonstrated my ability to work with world leaders and develop relationships with them, which are positive.
“And I think I have demonstrated that in the two and a half years that I have had the honor of being Prime Minister.”
While government ministers maintain a calm and polite appearance toward the incoming administration, Trump’s surprise victory has reportedly spread electoral fear among Labor ranks.
The ABC quoted an unnamed Labor source as saying there were harsh lessons for center-left parties from Trump’s banishment of Democrat Kamala Harris, who along with her electoral college drubbing is destined to lose the popular vote.
Before Trump changed course, it had been two decades since a Republican presidential candidate won the popular vote, that being George W. Bush in 2004.
One reason for this is Trump’s enormous appeal to male voters, traditionally a bastion of electoral strength for Australia’s Labor Party.
The unnamed Labor source told ABC that Americans who voted on pocketbook issues “personally felt hurt” by rising prices under Democrat Joe Biden, even though official US inflation figures fell.
Trump is set to win the popular vote, the first time a Republican candidate has done so since 2004.
It is an electoral nightmare facing the Albanian government in Australia, where wage increases have lagged behind soaring prices for the past three years, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The international body said Australia has experienced “one of the largest falls in real wages among OECD countries.”
“Real wages grew in 2024 for the first time in almost three years, but households still face pressure from the cost of living crisis,” an OECD report said in July.
This left Australian workers even worse off than their rich world counterparts in Spain, Germany and the United States, where wages have also fallen in real terms.
Another unnamed Labor source told ABC that Trump’s opposition to the Paris climate agreement “makes our lives difficult” on energy and emissions policies.