As the United States decides its next president, former NSW Premier Bob Carr said the country was in the throes of a "political nervous breakdown".
As pre-election polls suggested Hillary Clinton was more likely to win the presidency, Mr Carr said there would be sections of American society and the political system which wouldn't agree with her assuming the seat.
"If Hillary gets elected as we all hope, then I think she is in for a long civil war with congress which will be republican," he told SBS.
"I think the white working class remains alienated as never before from this process, and the Democratic Party in particular.
"I think America is going to be weakened in providing international leadership. We’ve already seen that in America withdrawing its support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)."
Mr Carr lambasted Trump for running a "ludicrous" campaign and claimed that the election day was his "reckoning" for numerous insults against cultural diverse people in the US.
"Trump has brought this on himself, if he consistently attacks one section of the American population, that is Hispanics, they’re going to queue up at polling booths, as human nature, to vote against him," he said.
"Why should they support someone who has belittled and abused them at every opportunity?
“He has attacked women in language, without exaggeration, (which was) misogynistic. How does he expect women to gravitate to him? They’re supporting Hillary overwhelmingly.
"He’s been a wretchedly bad campaigner. He’s been laughably, ludicrously, dopey as a political salesman and today is the reckoning."
Mr Carr casted a bleak picture for the current social and political environments in the US.
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“America remains weak, and it’s almost beyond the power of a president to rectify. The party political system in America has never been as weak,” he said.
"It weakens America as the strategic global leader that we have taken it to be.
“I don’t think (Trump) has done anything that’s constructive, it’s all been negative and foul mouthed. He's worsened the divisions in American society, and that’s a terribly legacy."
Australia-US relationship
Mr Carr said Australia's relationship with the US would remain "comfortable" under a Clinton administration but said the Turnbull government could be called upon to step up.
"The relationship will work as well as it’s ever worked. I think Australia has got to learn to say no to America if Hillary veers in a feisty direction," he said.
"Some of her foreign policy choices, she wanted to go into Syria and she was overruled by President Obama, have been imprudent.
"I think the left wing of her party are going to restrain what she might do in foreign policy terms."
