The boomerang was the brilliant invention of Australia’s Indigenous people. An angular, carefully crafted piece of wood, it has come to be used for actions or words that backfire on their originator.

It is thus appropriate that on Saturday, voters Down Under offered a potent lesson about the boomerang effect to Donald Trump and his MAGA faithful. The president hoped his dominance of the world stage would inspire an international swing toward the nationalist far right. Instead, Australians - angry and mystified by Trump’s tariffs - gifted their center-left prime minister, Anthony Albanese, whose Labor Party trailed in the polls only a few months ago, a landslide victory few predicted.

Labor’s triumph came less than a week after Canada’s voters, in an election even more clearly defined by Trump, rescued the center-left Liberal Party from the polling wilderness and ratified Mark Carney as their prime minister.

Two elections, of course, don’t make a global trend. A lot more was going on in Australia than an anti-Trump backlash. Albanese ran a disciplined campaign focused on health care, housing and other domestic issues. His conservative rival, Peter Dutton, made some mistakes and lost his own seat in the Labor tide.

But playing down the sentiments of two of the United States’ closest friends, reflected in two high-turnout national elections, would be foolish. And the way Albanese and his Labor Party won offers lessons to moderately progressive parties all over the world, especially in the U.S.

You can make a case that the 62-year-old Albanese ran the reelection campaign that Joe Biden might have had a chance to run had he been 15 or 20 years younger. Albanese’s Labor, like U.S. Democrats, was battling rising prices, housing shortages and a general discontent with the status quo that left Albanese himself with less-than-stellar approval ratings.

But he was able to point to improvements in the inflation outlook. An up-from-poverty embodiment of a party with a long history of speaking for working-class Australians, Albanese also led a government that also took climate change seriously. He then made modest but tangible offers, particularly on health care and taxes.

Dutton, like Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, counted on a campaign largely rooted in attacks on the incumbent government. This seemed a good enough bet when Labor was lagging in the polls. Dutton also thought that key constituencies, particularly in the battleground suburbs around Sydney and Melbourne, were ready to vote in line with their resentments against “wokeness.” Dutton’s success in leading the effort to defeat Albanese’s 2023 referendum to enshrine a voice for Indigenous people in Australia’s constitution made playing the anti-woke card seem like a good wager, too.

Enter Trump’s growing unpopularity. Especially after his incomprehensible tariffs on a proudly free-trading country, the American president became an albatross.

Dutton had once praised Trump as “a dealmaker” and “a big thinker,” and Dutton’s policies on government cutbacks and wokeness carried Trumpian echoes. As Trump’s standing fell, it did not help that a senator allied with Dutton pledged to “Make Australia Great Again” and was photographed wearing a MAGA hat.

Albanese was careful with what he said about Trump, knowing he’d need to nurture the American alliance if he was reelected. He called Trump’s tariffs “totally unwarranted” but did not impose reciprocal levies. Yet eight carefully chosen words in response sent a strong message: “This is not the act of a friend.”

Dutton faced an additional problem: Australia’s ranked-choice voting system facilitates third-party voting but also transfers the votes for defeated third party contenders to second-choice candidates, who usually but not always represent one of the major parties.

Labor surprised prognosticators by beating the conservative coalition for first-preference votes but also won many seats with help from backers of the Australian Greens and other progressive factions.

The result was an election in which progressives and moderates alike could claim vindication and an endorsement of a style of politics far removed from MAGA-style vituperation.

A signal moment came during a debate when Dutton accused Albanese of being “weak.” Albanese shot back: “Kindness isn’t weakness.”

Jim Chalmers, Labor’s lead economic spokesman, highlighted the episode during an election night broadcast while also praising Dutton’s graciousness in conceding defeat. “When did it become weakness to be kind or generous or inclusive or gracious?” Chalmers asked.

Trump’s tariffs can’t stop good questions from crossing borders or oceans. Importing that one would not affect our balance of payments, but it could alter the balance of decency in our politics. Voters in Australia and Canada would like us to think about it.