I have a professional background in statistics, health and population statistics specifically, and for many years election night with Antony Green and his jaunty tie and his graphics has been a pleasure I have consistently indulged in. Last night was no exception, and while I dared to hope, I was trepidatious that it could have been a very different outcome.

What could have been hardly bears thinking of; with the appalling state in the US currently, we don’t have to think about how bad it could have been. We can see it. We saw politicians cosplaying MAGA in politics here, parroting their slogans and posturing in the same way, talking over anyone who tried to hold them to account. Trumpism is very much in Australia.

Yes, it could have gone the other way. There has been a great deal of distress among some clients about what is occurring in the US, the implications locally, nationally and globally. I have maintained the perspective that Trump and what he represents is actually nothing new. What is new, is that it is now screaming in our face on a daily basis and we are seeing the very outcomes of that ideology in practice. It can no longer be ignored and swept under the carpet into our subconscious space. Not discounting the suffering he is actively causing, it also presents an unprecedented chance for meaningful change.

Despite political differences that still exist, this sense of great political divide between left and right, what is obvious in Australia as elsewhere, is that we are more aligned with our core values than it might appear on the surface. There may well be differences in ideas of what those core values should look like when enacted, and how best to go about achieving them, but what I took from last night’s election result is the following.

Broadly, people are against cruelty, they are against hatred of others based on superficial or ideological features. People want justice, they want just and honest representation, and they don’t want white supremacy or Christian nationalism to dictate the direction of our day-to-day lives or this country. People are paying attention and these things now matter in a way they never have before. They mean something more collectively than they ever have before.

With everything going on in the world there is rightly a lot of fear very accessible and easy to stir. Despite that fear people voted for hope. I do not say this to suggest that a majority Labor government is the best conceivable outcome, the environment remains a significant concern under their governance among other things. Yet it is hope nonetheless and we should take a moment to acknowledge that.

What the sensitive and aware, the ‘snowflakes’, have been saying for so long is now proving excruciatingly, devastatingly true. When the worst is not happening it is very easy for the less sensitive and the willfully unaware to dismiss those voices. ‘Business as usual’ rules the day. Those that have been able to switch off and remain unaffected, whether innately unsensitive or numbed as an adaptive mechanism, are now it would seem, finally paying attention. At least enough of them are to make a notable difference.

This is and always has been the superpower of the sensitive types; to be able to perceive what others are deaf and blind to. Like the canary in the coal mine they pick up on what is toxic before it is clear to others, even before it may be clear in their own conscious minds exactly the what or why. The body knows and responds. Justice sensitivity is a recognised aspect of neurodiversity. This world will be a better place once the capacities of the sensitive people is fully harnessed and appreciated for what it is. The taken-for-granted norms of this current world in its insensitivity is harmful, to everyone, even those unaware of it.

The US has long lauded itself as the ‘leader of the free world’ and a ‘beacon of democracy’. Anyone paying attention has known that was either an outright lie or a deep delusion or political pageantry, depending on where such sentiment was coming from. But now they are in a way, by showing us the worst of political ideology back in action, also showing a clear direction; away from whatever it is that their political class is doing, saying and being.

Australia has apparently followed the beacon that is so clearly lit elsewhere. Though it’s not quite forging towards a new horizon, it’s still staying in the known bounds. Labor have not shown themselves to be willing to make changes in the directions we so sorely need, and while we may hold a hopeful thought that maybe this time will be different, I personally won’t be holding my breath. Though I’d love to be proven wrong.

The path we are on is not far enough away for my liking, to the one we see in its critical endgame era in the US, but I want to take the positive view at least for the moment. There is real resistance, deep resistance, to where that known path leads. There is something meaningful that this outcome represents though I suspect it is one of those hindsight view things. But the one thing made brazenly clear on the world stage is what the worst of hateful political rhetoric means in real terms. Trumpism, fascism, authoritarianism, immeasurable harm. That was within our reach and we could have voted for it.

Australia resoundingly said ‘no’.

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