It was almost 10 years ago when the unthinkable happened. Sitting in an American-style diner on a bright November day, I watched as the results came in. State after state had voted for a man most people I knew and the opinion polls thought unelectable. Washed up reality TV star Donald Trump was to become the 45th president of the United States.

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Randy, the American who ran the diner in regional NSW, took it better than I did. He was a Democrat and had assumed Hillary Clinton would win. When it was clear she hadn't, he shrugged and said, "Oh well, that's democracy" and accepted the result with grace.

Fast forward and the unthinkable happened again in 2024, when Trump was re-elected, in spite of the chaos he wrought during his first term and the violence he incited after it. History is littered with terrible leaders once thought unelectable.

And the unthinkable is threatening to happen on our shores, with a party and leader long dismissed as a fringe sideshow now polling as the most popular among Australian voters.

Like Trump, Pauline Hanson and One Nation are tapping into frustration and resentment among voters who feel the political system has failed them. It's a terrible whinge-fest, big on complaint, short on solutions. And, also like Trump, mired in chaos and confusion.

Last week, it was the housing policy. Barnaby Joyce plunged off the planter box when asked whether non-citizens would be thrown out of their homes if they failed to sell them within two years of *shudder* One Nation winning government. Yes, it would apply to non-citizens, no wait, I'll have to check, Sky News was told in a trainwreck interview.

Clarity of sorts came days later when Pauline herself said the policy would apply only to foreigners, not permanent residents. She ought to tell her website designers as well because it still says the following: "With a crucial shortage of housing stock in Australia, we must stop the sale of property to non-residents and non-citizens."

Barnaby was at it again this week, whining that "people who look like they've recently arrived" are crowding dinki-di Aussies out on the housing market. Never one to let the facts get in the way of stoking division, Barnaby ignored Tax Office figures which show only .05 per cent of all property purchases made in 2024-2025 were by foreigners. A bit rich coming from the bloke disqualified from........

© Canberra Times