Donald Trump and Peter Dutton have both embraced populism. Are working-class voters buying it?

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has often been accused of copying former US President Donald Trump’s tactics. Some analysts even refer to Dutton, like Trump, as a “populist” who seeks political gain by pitting ordinary citizens against corrupt “elites”.

There is evidence of this populism in the willingness of Trump, Dutton and other figures in their parties to attack “big business”.

This is unusual for the conservative parties, and it has alarmed business-aligned outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the Australian Financial Review.

Republicans and Liberals have always preferred to identify with small business rather than big business. Their relationship with corporate interests has not always been smooth.

But they do not believe there is a natural conflict between business and workers, or between different sections of the economy. And they usually align with big business on the critical issues of taxation and government regulation.

So Dutton’s declaration earlier this year that the Liberal Party is “not the party of big business” but “the friend of the worker” marks a notable rhetorical shift, even if there is reason to doubt the substance behind it.

It mirrors a similar shift to pro-worker rhetoric among leading Republicans. Florida Senator Marco Rubio said in 2020, for instance, the future of the Republican Party is based on “a multiethnic, multiracial, working-class coalition”.

Expanding their share of the working-class vote may be necessary for both parties, given their losses of tertiary-educated, middle-class voters and seats in recent elections. Economic populism may be one path to do it.

But how economically populist can conservative parties get in either country?

Why attack big business?

A lot of Republican and Liberal attacks on big business are fundamentally cultural rather than economic.

Publicly-owned corporations have embraced diversity, equity and inclusion policies. They declare commitments to “sustainability”. And plenty of them have backed causes like marriage equality, Black Lives Matter and the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

However cosmetic these gestures are, many conservatives see major corporations as culturally hostile to them. More importantly, they no longer see big business and finance as reliable political backers.