The economy, stupid. With those three words, political adviser James Carville honed a campaign strategy that would sweep Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992. A quarter of a century on, and Donald Trump used a simple economic message to win the White House, this time at the expense of Hillary Clinton.
Mr Trump swept Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin – traditional Democrat states that had voted twice for Barack Obama – with a simple message. He promised to stop jobs heading overseas, to close borders, to trash the free trade deals signed by his predecessors. He didn't even need to explain how. To quote a Harvard Kennedy School paper, he "peddled a melange of xenophobic fear tactics [against Mexicans and Muslims], deep-seated misogyny, paranoid conspiracy theories about his rivals, and isolationist America-first policies abroad".
Mr Trump kept his message simple, and mobilised an underclass that felt forgotten by what it sees as the country's ruling elite. He won on the back of the rust belt, once great manufacturing states that have seen high unemployment and stagnant wage growth amid the decline of American industry.
These are the steelworkers, car industry workers and coalminers who have seen their once comfortable livelihoods evaporate and fear for their economic security.
Mrs Clinton responded by saying, "You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it."
In doing so, she alienated a vast swath of middle America. In football parlance, Ms Clinton played the man and not the ball. The same failures have been evident within Australian politics, where opponents of One Nation have ridiculed Pauline Hanson and her voters, rather than try to debunk the failed logic that underpins One Nation's beliefs and policies.
It's a lesson our own political leaders must heed, especially as it doesn't take long to find parallels between the economic plight of America's rust belt states and Victoria's changing economy. Within the term of the Andrews government, Victoria will witness the end of the Australian car industry. Gone, too, is the Hazelwood power station in the Latrobe Valley, while the future of SPC Ardmona's cannery in Shepparton and Alcoa's aluminium smelter in Portland hangs in the balance. Tens of thousands of jobs are expected to be affected.
In Melbourne's inner suburbs, adult unemployment rates are generally less than 4.5 per cent. In the Latrobe Valley, the figure is 8.1 per cent. The jobless rate is 7.8 per cent in Melbourne's western suburbs, and above 7 per cent in the city's industrialised north-west and south-east, where the car industry closures will hit hard.
Like America, we are grappling with the lowest rate of wage growth in almost two decades, while buying a home – once seen as the great Australian dream – has never been so unaffordable.
Such seeds of discontent have given rise to populist movements around the world. It would be naive to think the sentiment that swept Mr Trump to power and led Britain to Brexit does not exist in Australia. Instead of Mexicans taking our jobs, the narrative in Australia is that foreigners are buying our homes, our factories and our farms.
We have already seen the rebirth of One Nation, which is trying to assert more power and influence at a national level, and growing unhappiness with Malcolm Turnbull within the right of Liberal Party. What Australia doesn't yet have is a Trump, a Marine Le Pen, a Norbert Hofer or a Nigel Farage. Unless our leaders can reconnect with the nation's disenchanted, the evidence from around the world is that may only be a matter of time.