An Australian state lawmaker has changed his name to “Aussie Trump”, in what he said was a protest against the country’s ruling centre-left Labor Party.
Trump, formerly known as Ben Dawkins, is an independent lawmaker in Western Australia’s (WA) upper house of parliament, where Labor also has a majority.
“I’ve launched a political protest against the tyranny and systematic corruption of the Labor government in WA,” he wrote in a post on X late on Wednesday, signing off as “Aussie”.
It’s kind of a classic thing for fascists to need to be either victimised or an unapologetic aggressor, or even both at the same time. It just has natural emotional appeal vs. facing a complex reality I guess.