Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton are heading to the federal election with a stun grenade rolling around the floor of Australian politics. The prime minister and opposition leader cannot know when to expect a detonation of blinding light and deafening noise from Donald Trump in his second term as United States president. And neither can be sure who in Australia might suffer the worst damage.

Albanese is at heightened risk because of history. “He scares the shit out of me,” he said of Trump in a panel discussion at the Splendour in the Grass music festival in 2017. A few years later, Albanese condemned the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 – the riot Trump calls a day of love. The prime minister referred directly to the way Trump incited the mob.

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