It was only late last year when former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Congressman Adam Kinzinger sat down together to talk about the future of American politics in the wake of January 6.
At the time, Adam was “pretty upbeat”, and saw the midterms as a way of demonstrating Donald Trump’s version of politics being rejected by Americans.
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There was a glimpse of hope politics was returning to normalcy, but a bit more than six months later, he’s not so sure.
“I think I underestimated the party base was faced with Donald Trump can’t win. I thought that some of this rationalisation would be, okay, we can put Ron DeSaintis in,” Adam said.
“He’s kind of like Donald Trump, but he can win.
“But what I underestimated is the extent to which and this is just the party base, I’ll tell you about the rest of America, but the extent to which owning the Liberals kind of pisisng people off, showing your toughness by saying, I don’t care about this and this, I’m going to still vote for Donald Trump.
“I underestimated the power that has over people. I underestimated the cowardice quite honestly, of other leaders in the party.”
Adam reflects on the toxicity that has overtaken the United States and why it’s almost certain Trump will be the Republican Presidential nominee.
What would a Trump 2.0 Presidency look like and what does this mean for the allies and democracy around the world?